presented  to  the 
UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 

by 

Mrs.    Griff ing  Bancroft 


A  House  Party  *  *  *  *  *  * 
********  By" Ouida" 


Chicago  and  New  York  *  *  * 
Rand,  McNally  &  Company 


A  HOUSE-PARTY 


CHAPTER  I. 

LADY   USK'S    STRANGE    INVITATIONS. 

IT  is  an  August  morning.  It  is  an  old  English 
manor-house.  There  is  a  breakfast-room  hung  with 
old  gilded  leather  of  the  times  of  the  Stuarts ;  it  has 
oak  furniture  of  the  same  period ;  it  has  leaded  lat- 
tices with  stained  glass  in  some  of  their  frames,  and 
the  motto  of  the  house  in  old  French,  "J'ay  bon 
vouloir,"  emblazoned  there  with  the  crest  of  a  heron 
resting  in  a  crown.  Thence,  windows  open  on  to  a 
green,  quaint,  lovely  garden,  which  was  laid  out  by 
Monsieur  Beaumont  when  he  planned  the  gardens  of 
Hampton  Court.  There  are  clipped  yew-tree  walks 
and  arbors  and  fantastic  forms;  there  are  stone  ter- 
races and  steps  like  those  of  Haddon,  and  there  are 
peacocks  which  pace  and  perch  upon  them  ;  there  are 
beds  full  of  all  the  flowers  which  blossomed  in  the 
England  of  the  Stuarts,  and  birds  dart  and  butterflies 
pass  above  them ;  there  are  huge  old  trees,  cedars, 


4  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

lime,  hornbeam  ;  beyond  the  gardens  there  are  the 
woods  and  grassy  lawns  of  the  home  park. 

The  place  is  called  Surrenden  Court,  and  is  one  of 
the  houses  of  George,  Earl  of  Usk, — his  favorite  house 
in  what  pastoral  people  call  autumn,  and  what  he  calls 
the  shooting  season. 

Lord  Usk  is  a  well-made  man  of  fifty,  with  a  good- 
looking  face,  a  little  spoilt  by  a  permanent  expression 
of  irritability  and  impatience,  which  is  due  to  the  state 
of  his  liver ;  his  eyes  are  good-tempered,  his  mouth  is 
querulous ;  nature  meant  him  for  a  very  amiable  man, 
but  the  dinner-table  has  interfered  with,  and  in  a  meas- 
ure upset,  the  good  intentions  of  nature  :  it  very  often 
does.  Dorothy,  his  wife,  who  is  by  birth  a  Fitz- 
Charles,  third  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Derry,  is  a  still 
pretty  woman  of  thirty-five  or  six,  inclined  to  an  em- 
bonpoint which  is  the  despair  of  herself  and  her  maids  ; 
she  has  small  features,  a  gay  expression,  and  very  in- 
telligent eyes ;  she  does  not  look  at  all  a  great  lady, 
but  she  can  be  one  when  it  is  necessary.  She  prefers 
those  merrier  moments  in  life  in  which  it  is  not  neces- 
sary. She  and  Lord  Usk,  then  Lord  Surrenden,  were 
greatly  in  love  when  they  married  ;  sixteen  years  have 
gone  by  since  then,  and  now  it  seems  very  odd  to  each 
of  them  that  they  should  ever  have  been  so.  They  are 
not,  however,  bad  friends,  and  have  even  at  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts  a  lasting  regard  for  each  other.  This 
is  saying  much,  as  times  go.  When  they  are  alone 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  5 

they  quarrel  considerably  ;  but  then  they  are  so  seldom 
alone.  They  both  consider  this  disputatiousness  the 
inevitable  result  of  their  respective  relations.  They 
have  three  sons,  very  pretty  boys  and  great  pickles, 
and  two  young  and  handsome  daughters.  The  eldest 
eon,  Lord  Surrenden,  rejoices  in  the  names  of  Victor 
Albert  Augustus  George,  and  is  generally  known  as 
Boom. 

They  are  now  at  breakfast  in  the  garden-chamber ; 
the  china  is  old  Chelsea,  the  silver  is  Queen  Anne,  the 
roses  are  old-fashioned  Jacqueminots  and  real  cabbage 
roses.  There  is  a  pleasant  scent  from  flowers,  coffee, 
cigarettes,  and  newly-mown  grass.  There  is  a  litter  of 
many  papers  on  the  floor. 

There  is  yet  a  fortnight  before  the  shooting  begins  ; 
Lord  Usk  feels  that  those  fifteen  days  will  be  intoler- 
able ;  he  repents  a  fit  of  fright  and  economy  in  which 
he  has  sold  his  great  Scotch  moors  and  deer-forest  to 
an  American  capitalist ;  not  having  his  own  lands  in 
Scotland  any  longer,  pride  has  kept  him  from  accept- 
ing any  of  the  many  invitations  of  his  friends  to  go  to 
them  there  for  the  Twelfth ;  but  he  has  a  keen  dread 
of  the  ensuing  fifteen  days  without  sport. 

His  wife  has  asked  her  own  set ;  but  he  hates  her 
set ;  he  does  not  much  like  his  own ;  there  is  only 
Dulcia  Waverley  whom  he  does  like,  and  Lady 
Waverley  will  not  come  till  the  twentieth.  He  feels 
bored,  hipped,  annoyed ;  he  would  like  to  strangle  the 


6  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

American  who  has  bought  Achnalorrie.  Achnalorrie, 
having  gone  irrevocably  out  of  his  hands,  represents  to 
him  for  the  time  being  the  one  absolutely  to  be  desired 
spot  on  earth.  Good  heavens !  he  thinks,  can  he  have 
been  such  a  fool  as  to  sell  it  ? 

When  he  was  George  Rochfort,  a  boy  of  much 
promise  going  up  to  Oxford  from  Eton,  he  had  a  clever 
brain,  a  love  of  classics,  and  much  inclination  to 
scholarly  pursuits ;  but  he  gradually  lost  all  these  tastes 
little  by  little,  he  could  not  very  well  have  said  how ; 
and  now  he  never  hardly  opens  a  book,  and  he  has 
drifted  into  that  odd,  English  habit  of  only  counting 
time  by  the  seasons  for  killing  things.  There  is 
nothing  to  kill  just  now  except  rabbits,  which  he 
scorns,  so  he  falls  foul  of  his  wife's  list  of  people  she 
has  invited,  which  is  lying,  temptingly  provocative,  of 
course,  on  the  breakfast-table,  scribbled  in  pencil  on  a 
sheet  of  note-paper. 

"Always  the  same  thing!"  he  says,  as  he  glances 
over  it.  "  Always  the  very  worst  lot  you  could  get 
together,  and  there  isn't  one  of  the  husbands  or  one  of 
the  wives ! " 

"  Of  course  there  isn't,"  says  Lady  TJsk,  looking  up 
from  a  Society  newspaper  which  told  her  that  her 
friends  were  all  where  they  were  not,  and  fitted  all 
the  caps  of  scandal  on  to  all  the  wrong  heads,  and  yet 
from  some  mysterious  reason  gave  her  amusement  on 
account  of  its  very  blunders. 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  7 

"  I  do  think,"  he  continues,  "  that  nobody  on  earth 
ever  had  such  absolutely  indecent  house-parties  as 
yours ! " 

"  You  always  say  these  absurd  things." 

"  I  don't  think  they're  absurd.  Look  at  your  list : 
everybody  asks  that  he  may  meet  somebody  whom  he 
shouldn't  meet ! " 

"  What  nonsense  !  As  if  they  didn't  all  meet  every- 
where every  day,  and  as  if  it  mattered  ! " 

"  It  does  matter." 

He  has  not  been  a  moral  man  himself,  but  at  fifty 
he  likes  to  faire  la  morale  pour  les  autres.  When  we 
are  compelled  to  relinquish  cakes  and  ale  ourselves, 
we  begin  honestly  to  believe  them  indigestible  for 
every  body ;  why  should  they  be  sold,  or  be  made,  at 
all? 

"  It  does  matter,"  he  repeats.  "  Your  people  are 
too  larky,  much  too  larky.  You  grow  worse  every 
year.  You  don't  care  a  straw  what's  said  about  'em  so 
long  as  they  please  you,  and  you  let  'em  carry  on  till 
there's  the  devil  to  pay." 

"  They  pay  him, — I  don't ;  and  they  like  it." 

"  I  know  they  like  it,  but  I  don't  choose  you  should 
give  'em  opportunity  for  it." 

"  Oh,  nonsense !  " 

"Not  nonsense  at  all.  This  house  is  a  kind  of 
Agapemone,  a  sort  of  Orleans  Club." 

"  You  ought  not  to  be  bored  ia  it,  then." 


8  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  One  is  always  bored  at  one's  own  place.  I  tell  you 
I  don't  like  your  people.  You  ask  everybody  who 
wants  to  meet  somebody  else ;  and  it's  never  respect- 
able. It's  a  joke  at  the  clubs.  Jack's  always  saying  to 
his  Jill,  '  We'll  get  Lady  Usk  to  ask  us  together,'  and 
they  do.  I  say  it's  indecent." 

"  But,  my  dear,  if  Jack  sulks  without  his  Jill,  and  if 
Jill's  in  bad  form  without  Jack,  one  must  ask  them  to- 
gether. I  want  people  to  like  me  and  to  enjoy  them- 
selves." 

"Enjoy  themselves!  That  means  flirting  till  all's 
blue  with  somebody  you'd  hate  if  you'd  married 
her." 

"  What  does  that  matter,  so  long  as  they're 
amused  ?  " 

"  What  an  immoral  woman  you  are,  Dolly !  To 
hear  you " 

"  I  only  mean  that  I  don't  think  it  matters ;  you 
know  it  doesn't  matter;  everybody's  always  doing 

it." 

"  If  you'd  only  ask  some  of  the  women's  husbands, 

some  of  the  men's  wives " 

"  I  cofcldn't  do  that,  dear.  I  want  people  to  like  my 
house ! " 

"  Just  as  I  say — you're  so  immoral." 

"  No,  I'm  not.  Nobody  ever  pays  a  bill  for  me,  ex- 
cept you." 

"  Enviable   distinction  !     Pay  !     I  think  I  do  pay ! 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  9 

Though  why  you  can't  keep  within  your  pin- 
money " 

"  Pin-money  means  money  to  buy  pins.  I  did  buy 
two  diamond  pins  with  it  last  year,  eight  hundred 
guineas  each." 

*'  You  ought  to  buy  clothes." 

"  Clothes !  What  an  expression  !  I  can't  buy  a 
child's  frock  even ;  it  all  goes  in  little  things,  and  all 
my  own  money  too ;  wedding-presents,  christening- 
presents,  churches,  orphanages,  concerts;  and  it's  all 
nonsense  you're  grumbling  about  my  bills  to  Worth 
and  Elise  and  Yirot ;  Boom  read  me  a  passage  out  of 
his  Ovid  last  Easter,  in  which  it  describes  the  quanti- 
ties of  things  that  the  Roman  women  had  to  wear  and 
make  them  look  pretty ;  a  great  deal  more  than  any 
of  us  ever  have,  and  their  whole  life  was  spent  over 
their  toilets,  and  then  they  had  tortoise-shell  steps  to 
get  down  from  their  litters,  and  their  dogs  had 
jewelled  collars;  and  liking  to  have  things  nice  is 
nothing  new,  though  you  talk  as  if  it  were  a  crime  and 
we'd  invented  it  !  " 

Usk  laughs  a  little  crossly  as  she  comes  to  the  end 
of  her  breathless  sentences.  "  Naso  Magister  eris" 
he  remarks,  "  might  certainly  be  inscribed  over  the 
chamber  doors  of  all  your  friends ! " 

"  I  know  you  mean  something  odious.  My  friends 
are  all  charming  people." 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  I  do  mean, — that   I    don't    like 


10  A  H6USE-PABTY. 

the  house  made  a  joke  of  in  London  ;  I'll  shut  it  up 
and  go  abroad  if  the  thing  goes  on.  If  a  scandal's 
begun  in  town  in  the  season,  it  always  comes  down 
here  to  carry  on  ;  if  there  are  two  people  fond  of  each 
other  when  they  shouldn't  be,  you  always  ask  'em 
down  here  and  make  pets  of  'em.  As  you're  taking 
to  quoting  Ovid,  I  may  as  well  tell  you  that  in  his  time 
the  honest  women  didn't  do  this  sort  of  thing ;  they 
left  it  to  the  light-o'-loves  under  the  porticoes." 

"  I  really  don't  know  what  I've  done  that  I  should 
be  called  an  honest  woman !  One  would  think  you 
were  speaking  to  the  housemaids !  I  wish  you'd  go 
and  stay  in  somebody  else's  house :  you  always  spoil 
things  here." 

"  Very  sorry.  I  like  my  own  shooting.  Three  days 
here,  three  days  there,  three  days  t'other  place,  and  ex- 
pected to  leave  the  game  behind  you  and  to  say 
'  thanks '  if  your  host  gives  you  a  few  brace  to  take 
away  with  you, — not  for  me,  if  I  know  it,  while  there's 
a  bird  in  the  covers  at  my  own  places." 

"  I  thought  you  were  always  bored  at  home  ?  " 

"Not  when  I'm  shooting.  I  don't  mind  having 
the  house  full,  either,  only  I  want  you  to  get  decenter 
people  in  it.  Why,  look  at  your  list! — they're  all 
paired  like  animals  in  the  ark.  Here's  Lady  Arthur 
for  Hugo  Mountjoy,  here's  lona  and  Madame  de 
Caillac,  here's  Mrs.  Curzon  for  Lawrence,  here's  Dick 
Wootton  and  Mrs.  Faversham,  here's  the  Duke  and 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  II 

Lady  Dolgelly,  here's  old  Beaumanoir  and  Olive 
Dawlish.  I  say  it's  absolutely  indecent,  when  you 
know  how  all  these  people  are  talked  about ! " 

"  If  one  waited  for  somebody  not  talked  about,  one 
would  have  an  empty  house  or  fill  it  with  old  fogies. 
My  dear  George,  haven't  you  ever  seen  that  advertise- 
ment about  matches  which  will  only  light  on  their 
own  boxes?  People  in  love  are  like  those  matches. 
If  you  ask  the  matches  without  the  boxes,  or  the 
boxes  without  the  matches,  you  won't  get  anything 
out  of  either." 

"  Ovid  was  born  too  early :  he  never  knew  this 
admirable  illustration ! " 

"  There's  only  one  thing  worse  than  inviting  people 
without  the  people  they  care  about ;  it  is  to  invite 
them  with  the  people  they're  tired  of :  I  did  that 
once  last  year.  I  asked  Madame  de  Saumur  and 
Gervase  together,  and  then  found  that  they  had 
broken  with  each  other  two  months  before.  That  is 
the  sort  of  blunder  I  do  hate  to  make  !  " 

"  Well,  nothing  happened  ?" 

"  Of  course  nothing  happened.  Nobody  ever  shows 
anything.  But  it  looks  so  stupid  in  me  :  one  is  always 
expected  to  know " 

"  What  an  increase  to  the  responsibilities  of  a  host- 
ess !  She  must  know  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  her 
acquaintances'  unlawful  affections  as  a  Prussian  officer 
knows  the  French  by-roads !  How  simple  an  affair  it 


12  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

used  to  be  when  the  Victorian  reign  was  young,  and 
Lord  and  Lady  So-and-So  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nobody 
all  came  to  stay  for  a  week  in  twos  and  twos  as  inevi- 
tably as  we  buy  fancy  pigeons  in  pairs !  " 

"  You  pretend  to  regret  those  days,  but  you  know 
you'd  be  horribly  bored  if  you  had  always  to  go  out 
with  me." 

"Politeness  would  require  me  to  deny,  but  truthful- 
ness would  compel  me  to  assent." 

"Of  course  it  would.  You  don't  want  anybody 
with  you  who  has  heard  all  your  best  stories  a  thou- 
sand tunes,  and  knows  what  your  doctor  has  told  you 
not  to  eat ;  I  don't  want  anybody  who  has  seen  how  I 
look  when  I'm  ill,  and  knows  where  my  false  hair  is 
put  on.  It  is  quite  natural.  By  the  way,  Boom  says 
Ovid's  ladies  had  perukes,  too,  as  one  of  them  put  her 
wig  on  upside  down  before  him,  and  it  chilled  his 
feelings  towards  her :  it  would  chill  most  people's.  I 
wonder  if  they  made  them  well  in  those  days,  and 
what  they  cost." 

"  I  think  you  might  have  invited  some  of  the  hus- 
bands." 

"  Oh,  dear,  no.  Why  ?  They're  all  staying  some- 
where else." 

5  "  And  your  friends  are  never  jealous,  I  suppose ;  at 
least,  never  about  their  husbands  ?  " 

"  An  agreeable  woman  is  never  jealous  of  anybody. 
She  hasn't  time  to  be.  It  is  only  the  women  who 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  13 

can't     amuse    themselves    who    make   that    sort    of 
fuss." 

"Are  you  an  agreeable  woman,  my  dear?" 

"  I  have  always  been  told  so,  by  everybody  excep* 
yourself." 

Lord  TJsk  rose  and  laughed  as  he  lighted  a  cigar. 

"Well,  I  won't  have  any  scandal  in  the  house 
Mind  that." 

"You'd  better  put  that  up  on  a  placard,  as  you 
have  put '  No  fees  allowed  to  the  servants,'  up  in  the 
hall." 

"  I'm  sure  I  would  with  pleasure  if  I  thought  any 
oody  would  attend  to  it.  I  don't  like  your  set,  Dolly. 
That's  the  truth.  I  wish  you'd  drop  nine-tenths  of 
'em." 

"My  dear  George,  I  wish  you  would  mind  your 
own  business,  to  use  a  very  vulgar  expression.  Do  I 
ever  say  anything  when  you  talk  nonsense  in  the 
Lords,  and  when  you  give  your  political  picnics  and 
shout  yourself  hoarse  to  the  farmers  who  go  away  and 
vote  against  your  man?  Do  I  ever  say  anything 
when  you  shoot  pheasants  which  cost  you  a  sovereign 
a  head  for  their  corn,  and  stalk  stags  which  cost  you 
eighty  pounds  each  for  their  keep,  and  lose  races  with 
horses  which  cost  you  ten  thousand  a  year  for  their 
breeding  and  training  ?  Do  I  ever  say  anything  when 
you  think  that  people  who  are  hungering  for  the  whole 
of  your  land  will  be  either  grateful  or  delighted  be- 


14  A  HOUSE-PAttTT. 

cause  you  take  ten  per  cent,  off  their  rents?  You 
know  I  don't.  I  think  you  ought  to  be  allowed  to 
ruin  yourself  and  accelerate  the  revolution  in  any 
absurd  way  which  may  seem  best  to  you.  In  return, 
pray  let  me  manage  my  own  house-parties  and  choose 
my  own  acquaintances.  It  is  not  much  to  ask. 
What!  are  you  going  away?  How  exactly  like  a 
man,  to  go  away  when  he  gets  the  worst  of  the 
argument !  " 

Lord  TJsk  has  gone  into  the  gardens  in  a  towering 
rage.  He  is  a  gentleman  :  he  will  quarrel  with  his 
wife  all  day  long,  but  he  will  always  stop  short  of 
swearing  at  her,  and  he  feels  that  if  he  stays  in  the 
room  a  moment  longer  he  will  swear :  that  allusion  to 
the  Scotch  stags  is  too  much  for  humanity  (with  a 
liver)  to  endure.  When  Achnalorrie  is  sold  to  that 
beastly  American,  to  be  twitted  with  what  stags  used 
to  cost !  Certainly  they  had  cost  a  great  deal,  and  the 
keepers  had  been  bores,  and  the  crofters  had  been 
nuisances,  and  there  had  always  been  some  disease  or 
other  among  the  birds,  and  he  had  never  cared  as 
much  as  some  men  for  deer-stalking;  but  still,  as 
Achnalorrie  is  irrevocably  gone,  the  thirty-mile  drive 
over  the  bleak  hills,  and  the  ugly  houses  on  the  stony 
strathside,  and  the  blinding  rains,  and  the  driving 
snows,  and  the  swelling  streams  which  the  horses  had 
to  cross  as  best  they  could,  all  seem  unspeakably  lovely 
to  him  and  the  sole  things  worth  living  for:  and  then 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  15 

his  wife  has  the  heartlessness  to  twit  him  with  the  cost 
of  each  stag ! 

t;  Women  have  no  feeling,"  he  growls,  as  he  walks 
about  the  gardens.  "  If  they  think  they  can  make  a 
point  they'll  make  it,  let  it  hurt  you  how  it  may." 

He  strolls  down  between  two  high  yew  walls  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  feels  injured  and  ag- 
grieved. He  ought  to  be  a  very  happy  person  ;  he  is 
still  rich  despite  the  troubles  of  the  times,  he  has  fine 
estates,  fair  rents,  handsome  children,  and  a  lite  of 
continual  change,  and  yet  he  is  bored  and  doesn't  like 
anything,  and  this  peaceful,  green  garden,  with  its 
innumerable  memories  and  its  delicious,  dreamful 
solitudes,  says  nothing  at  all  to  him.  Is  it  his  own 
fault  or  the  fault  of  his  world?  He  doesn't  know. 
He  supposes  it  is  the  fault  of  his  liver.  His  father 
was  always  contented,  and  jolly  as  a  sand-boy ;  but 
then  in  his  father's  time  there  was  no  grouse-disease, 
no  row  about  rents,  no  wire  fencing  to  lame  your 
horses,  no  Ground  Game  Bill  to  corrupt  your  farmers, 
no  Leaseholder's  Bills  hanging  over  your  London 
houses,  no  corn  imported  from  Arkansas  and  Cali- 
fornia, no  Joe  Chamberlain,  When  poor  Boom's  turn 
comes,  how  will  things  be?  Joe  Chamberlain  Presi- 
dent, perhaps,  and  Surrenden  cut  up  into  allotment- 
grounds. 

He  possesses  two  other  very  big  places  in  adjacent 

counties,  Orme  Castle  and  Denton  Abbey,  but  they 
2 


16  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

are  ponderous,  vast,  gorgeous,  ceremonious,  ugly :  he 
detests  both  of  them.  Of  Surrenden  he  is,  on  the 
contrary,  as  fond  as  he  can  be  of  anything  except  the 
lost  Achnalorrie  and  a  little  cosey  house  that  he  has  at 
Newmarket  where  the  shadow  of  Lady  Usk  has  never 
fallen. 

He  hears  the  noise  of  wheels  on  gravel.  It  comes 
from  the  other  side  of  the  house ;  it  is  his  brake  and 
his  omnibus  going  down  the  avenue  on  their  way  to 
the  nearest  railway-station,  four  miles  off,  to  meet 
some  of  his  coming  guests  there.  Well,  there'll  be 
nothing  seen  of  them  till  two  o'clock  at  luncheon. 
They  are  all  people  he  hates,  or  thinks  he  hates,  for 
that  best  of  all  possible  reasons,  that  his  wife  likes 
them.  Why  can't  Dulcia  Waverley  come  before  the 
20th  ?  Lady  Waverley  always  amuses  him,  and 
agrees  with  him.  It  is  so  pleasant  to  be  agreed  with, 
only  when  one's  own  people  do  so  it  makes  one  almost 
more  angry  than  when  one  is  contradicted.  When  his 
wife  agrees  with  him  it  leaves  him  nothing  to  say. 
When  Dulcia  Waverley  agrees  with  him  it  leaves  him 
with  a  soothing  sense  of  being  sympathized  with  and 
appreciated.  Dulcia  Waverley  always  tells  him  that 
he  might  have  been  a  great  statesman  if  he  had 
chosen  :  as  he  always  thinks  so  himself,  the  echo  of  his 
thoughts  is  agreeable. 

He  sits  down  in  one  of  the  clipped-yew-tree  arbors  to 
light  a  new  cigar  and  smoke  it  peaceably.  A  peacock 


STRANGE  IN  VITA  TIONS.  1 7 

goes  past  him,  drawing  its  beautiful  train  over  the 
iynooth-shaven  grass.  A  mavis  is  singing  on  a  rose- 
bough.  The  babble  of  a  stream  hidden  under  adjacent 
"tj'ees  is  pleasant  on  the  morning  silence.  He  doesn't 
notice  any  of  it ;  he  thinks  it  odiously  hot,  and  what 
fools  they  were  who  clipped  the  yew-tree  into  the 
shape  of  a  periwig,  and  what  a  beast  of  a  row  that 
trout-stream  makes.  Why  don't  they  turn  it,  and 
sbnd  it  farther  from  the  house?  He's  got  no  money 
to  do  anything,  or  he  would  have  it  done  to-morrow. 

A  peacock  begins  to  scream.  The  noise  of  a  peacock 
cannot  be  said  to  be  melodious  or  soothing  at  any 
time. 

"  Why  don't  you  ring  that  bird's  neck  ?  "  he  says 
savagely  to  a  gardener's  boy  who  is  gathering  up  fallen 
rose-leaves. 

The  boy  gapes  and  touches  his  hair,  his  hat  being 
already  on  the  ground  in  sign  of  respect.  The  pea- 
cocks have  been  at  Surrenden  ever  since  Warren 
Hastings  sent  the  first  pair  as  a  present  to  the  Lady 
Usk  of  that  generation,  and  they  are  regarded  with  a 
superstitious  admiration  by  all  the  good  Hampshire 
people  who  walk  in  the  gardens  of  Surrenden  or  visit 
them  on  the  public  day.  The  Sui-renden  peacocks  are 
as  sacred  to  the  neighborhood  and  the  workpeople  as 
ever  was  the  green  ibis  in  old  Egypt. 

"  How  long  will  they  touch  their  caps  or  pull  their 
forelocks  to  us  ? "  thinks  Lord  Usk ;  "  though  I  don't 


18  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

see  why  they  can  reasonably  object  to  do  it  as  long  as 
we  take  off  our  hats  to  Wales  and  say  '  Sir '  to  him." 

This  political  problem  suggests  the  coming  elections 
to  his  mind :  the  coming  elections  are  a  disagreeable 
subject  for  meditation  :  why  wasn't  he  born  in  his 
grandfather's  time,  when  there  were  pocket  boroughs 
as  handy  and  portable  as  snuff-boxes,  and  the  county 
returned  Lord  Usk's  nominee  as  a  matter  of  course 
without  question  ? 

"  Well,  and  what  good  men  they  got  in  those  days," 
he  thinks,  "Fox,  and  Hervey,  and  Walpole,  and 
Burke,  and  all  the  rest  of  'em ;  fine  orators,  clever 
ministers,  members  that  did  the  nation  honor ;  every 
great  noble  sent  up  some  fine  fellow  with  breeding  and 
brains;  bunkum  and  bad  logic  and  dropped  aspirates 
had  no  kind  of  chance  to  get  into  the  House  in  those 
days.  Now,  even  when  Boom's  old  enough  to  put  up 
himself,  I  dare  say  there'll  be  some  biscuit-baker  or 
some  pin-maker  sent  down  by  the  Radical  Caucus  or 
the  English  Land  League  who'll  make  the  poor  devils 
believe  that  the  millennium's  coming  in  with  them, 
and  leave  Boom  nowhere  !  " 

The  prospect  is  so  shocking  that  he  throws  his 
cigar-end  at  the  peacocks  and  gets  up  out  of  the  ever- 
green periwig. 

As  he  does  so  he  comes,  to  his  absolute  amazement, 
face  to  face  with  his  friend  Lord  Brandolin. 

Lord  Brandolin  is  supposed  by  all  the  world,  or  at 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  19 

least  that  large  portion  of  it  which  is  interested  in  his 
movements,  to  be  at  that  moment  in  the  forest-recesses 
of  Lahore. 

"  My  dear  George,"  says  Lord  Brandolin,  in  a  very 
sweet  voice,  wholly  unlike  the  peacocks',  "  I  venture 
to  take  you  by  surprise.  I  have  left  my  tub  at  Wey- 
mouth  and  come  on  foot  across-country  to  you.  It  is 
most  unpardonable  conduct,  but  I  have  always  abused 
your  friendship." 

The  master  of  Surrenden  cannot  find  words  of 
welcome  warm  enough  to  satisfy  himself.  He  is 
honestly  delighted.  Failing  Dulcia  Waverley,  no- 
body could  have  been  so  agreeable  to  him  as  Brando- 
lin. For  once  a  proverb  is  justified,  "  a  self-invited 
guest  is  thrice  welcome."  He  is  for  dragging  his 
visitor  in  at  once  to  breakfast,  but  Brandolin  resists. 
He  has  breakfasted  on  board  his  yacht ;  he  could  not 
eat  again  before  luncheon ;  he  likes  the  open  air,  he 
wishes  to  sit  in  the  pei'iwig  and  smoke. 

"  Do  not  let  us  disturb  Lady  Usk,"  he  said.  "  I 
know  chatelaines  in  the  country  have  a  thousand  and 
one  things  to  do  before  luncheon,  and  I  know  your 
house  is  full  from  gable  to  cellar." 

"  It  will  be  by  night,"  says  the  master  of  Surren- 
den, with  disgust,  "  and  not  a  decent  soul  among  'em 
all." 

"  That  is  very  sad  for  you,"  says  Brandolin  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  handsome  eyes.  He  is  not  a  handsome 


20  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

man,  but  he  has  beautiful  eyes,  a  patrician  profile,  and 
a  look  of  extreme  distinction ;  his  expression  is  a  little 
cynical,  but  more  amused ;  he  is  about  forty  years  old, 
but  looks  younger.  He  is  not  married,  having  by 
some  miracle  of  good  fortune,  or  of  personal  dexterity, 
contrived  to  elude  all  the  efforts  made  for  his  capture. 
His  barony  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  England,  and  he 
would  not  exchange  it,  were  it  possible,  for  a  dukedom. 

"  Since  when  have  you  been  so  in  love  with  decency, 
George  ?  "  he  asks,  gravely. 

Lord  Usk  laughs.  "  Well,  you  know  I  think  one's 
own  house  should  be  proper." 

"  No  doubt,"  says  Lord  Brandolin,  still  more  gravely. 
"  To  do  one's  morality  vicariously  is  always  so  agree- 
able. Is  Lady  Waverley  not  here  ?  She  would  save 
a  hundred  Sodoms,  with  a  dozen  Gomorrahs  thrown  in 
gratis." 

"  I  thought  you  were  in  India,"  says  his  host,  who 
does  not  care  to  pursue  the  subject  of  Lady  Waver- 
ley's  saintly  qualifications  for  the  salvation  of  cities  or 
men. 

"  I  went  to  India,  but  it  bored  me.  I  liked  it  when 
I  was  twenty-four ;  one  likes  so  many  things  when  one 
is  twenty-four, — even  champagne  and  a  cotillion. 
How's  Boom?" 

"  Very  well ;  gone  to  his  cousins'  in  Stiff  oik.  Sure 
you  won't  have  something  to  eat  ?  They  can  bring  it 
here  in  a  minute  if  you  like  out-of-doors  best." 


STRANGE  INVITATIONS.  21 

« 
"  Quite  sure,  thanks.     What  a  lovely  place  this  is  ! 

I  haven't  seen  it  for  years.  I  don't  think  there's 
another  garden  so  beautiful  in  all  England.  After 
the  great  dust-plains  and  the  sweltering  humid  heats 
of  India,  all  this  coolness  and  greenness  are  like  Para- 
dise." 

Brandolin  laughs  languidly. 

"  Hot !  you  ungrateful,  untravelled  country  squire  I 
I  should  like  to  fasten  you  to  a  life-buoy  in  the  middle 
of  the  Red  Sea.  Why  do  Englishmen  perspire  in 
every  pore  the  moment  the  thermometer's  above  zero 
in  their  own  land,  and  yet  stand  the  tropics  better  than 
any  other  Europeans  ?  " 

"  You  know  I've  sold  Achnalorrie  ?  "  says  his  host, 
d  propos  de  rien^  but  to  him  Achnalorrie  seems 
ci  propos  of  everything  in  creation. 

Brandolin  is  surprised,  but  he  does  not  show  any 
surprise.  "Ah!  Quite  right,  too.  If  we  wished  to 
please  the  Radicals  we  couldn't  find  any  way  to  please 
them  and  injure  ourselves  equal  to  our  insane  fashion 
of  keeping  hundreds  of  square  acres  at  an  enormous 
cost,  only  that  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  summer  we  may 
do  to  death  some  of  the  most  innocent  and  graceful  of 
God's  creatures." 

«  That's  just  the  bosh  Dolly  talks." 

"Lady  Usk  is  a  wise  politician,  then.  Let  her 
train  Boom  for  his  political  life.  I  don't  know  which 
is  the  more  utterly  indefensible, — our  enormous  High- 


22  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

land  deer- slaughter  or  our  imbecile  butchery  of  birds. 
They  ought  to  have  recorded  the  introduction  of 
battue-shooting  into  the  British  Isles  by  the  Great  and 
Good  on  the  Albert  Memorial." 

"  One  must  shoot  something." 

"  I  never  saw  why.  But '  something '  honestly  found 
by  a  setter  in  stubble,  and  three  thousand  head  of 
game  between  five  guns  in  a  morning,  are  very  dif- 
ferent things.  What  did  they  give  you  for  Ach- 
nalorrie  ?  " 

Usk  discourses  of  Achnalorrie  with  breathless  elo- 
quence, as  of  a  lover  eulogizing  the  charms  of  a  mis- 
tress forever  lost  to  him. 

Brandolin  listens  with  admirable  patience,  and  af- 
'fects  to  agree  that  the  vision  of  the  American  crawl- 
ing on  his  stomach  over  soaking  heather  in  a  thick  fog 
for  eight  hours  after  a  "  s£ag  of  ten "  is  a  vision  of 
such  unspeakably  enviable  bliss  that  it  must  harrow 
the  innermost  soul  of  the  dispossessed  lord  of  the  soil. 

"  And  yet,  do  you  know,"  he  says,  in  conclusion,  "  I 
am  such  a  degenerate  mortal,  such  an  unworthy  'son 
of  a  gun,'  that  I  would  actually  sooner  be  sitting  in 
these  lovely,  sunny,  shady  gardens,  where  one  expects 
to  see  all  Spenser's  knights  coming  through  the  green 
shadows  towards  one,  than  I  would  be  the  buyer  of 
Achnalorrie,  even  in  the  third  week  of  August  ?  " 

"  You  say  so,  but  you  don't  mean  it,"  says  the  seller 
of  Achnalorrie. 


STRANGE  IN  VITA  TIONS.  23 

"I  never  say  what  I  don't  mean,"  says  Brandolin. 
"  And  I  never  cared  about  Scotland." 

The  other  smokes  dejectedly,  and  refuses  to  be  com- 
forted. 

"  Lady  Waverley  isn't  here  ?  "  asks  Brandolin,  with 
a  certain  significance.  Lady  Waverley  alone  would 
have  the  power  of  making  the  torturing  vision  of  the 
American  among  the  heather  fade  into  the  background 
of  her  host's  reflections. 


24  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST. 

"  DOLLY  is  nasty  about  Achnalorrie,"  says  Lord 
Usk,  as  they  at  last  rise  and  approach  the  house. 

"Not  logical  if  she  objects  to  moors  on  political 
principles.  But  ladies  are  seldom  logical  when  they 
are  as  charming  as  Lady  Usk." 

"  She  never  likes  me  to  enjoy  anything." 

"  I  don't  think  you  are  quite  just  to  her  :  you  know 
I  always  tell  you  so."  (Brandolin  remembers  the 
sweetness  with  which  Dorothy  Usk  invites  Lady 
Waverley  season  after  season.)  "You  are  a  great 
grumbler,  George.  I  know  grumbling  is  a  Briton's 
privilege,  provided  for  and  secured  to  him  in  Magna 
Charta;  but  still  too  great  abuse  of  the  privilege  spoils 
life." 

"Nobody  was  ever  so  bothered  as  I  am."  Lord 
Usk  regards  himself  invariably  with  compassion  us 
an  ill-used  man.  "  You  always  take  everything  light- 
ly ;  but  then  you  aren't  married,  and  I  suppose  you 
get  some  of  your  rents  ?  " 

"  I  have  always  been  rather  poor,  but  I  don't  mind 
it.  So  long  as  I  needn't  shut  up  or  let  the  old  place, 


THE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST.  25 

and  can  keep  my  boat  afloat,  I  don't  much  care  about 
anything  more.  I've  enough  for  myself." 

"  Ah,  that's  just  it ;  but  when  one  has  no  end  of 
family  expenses  and  four  great  houses  to  keep  up,  and 
the  counties  looking  to  one  for  everything,  and  the 
farmers,  poor  devils,  ruined  themselves,  it's  another 
matter.  I  assure  you  if  I  hadn't  made  that  sacrifice 
of  Achnalorrie " 

Lady  Usk  coming  out  of  the  garden-room  down 
the  steps  of  one  of  the  low  windows  spares  Brandolin 
the  continuation  of  the  lament.  She  looks  pretty; 
mindful  of  her  years,  she  holds  a  rose-lined  sun- 
umbrella  over  her  head ;  the  lace  and  muslin  of  her 
breakfast-gown  sweep  the  lawn  softly;  she  has  her 
two  daughters  with  her,  the  Ladies  Alexandra  and 
Hermoine,  known  as  Dodo  and  Lilie.  She  welcomes 
Brandolin  with  mixed  feelings,  though  with  unmixed 
suavity.  She  is  glad  to  see  him  because  he  amuses 
Usk,  and  is  a  person  of  wit  and  distinction  whom 
everybody  tries  to  draw  to  their  houses ;  but  then  he 
upsets  all  her  nicely-balanced  combinations ;  there  is 
nobody  for  him  ;  he  will  be  the  "  one  out "  when  all 
her  people  so  nicely  arranged  and  paired ;  and,  as  she 
is  aware  that  he  is  not  a  person  to  be  reconciled  to 
such  isolation,  he  will  dispossess  somebody  else  and 
cause  probably  those  very  dissensions  and  complica- 
tions from  which  it  is  always  her  effort  to  keep  all  her 
house-parties  free.  However,  there  he  is ;  and  he  is 


26  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

accustomed  to  be  welcomed  and  made  much  of  wher- 
ever he  goes.  She  can  do  no  less. 

Brandolin  makes  himself  charming  in  return,  and 
turns  pretty  compliments  to  her  and  the  children, 
which  he  can  do  honestly,  for  he  has  always  liked 
Dorothy  Usk,  and  the  two  young  girls  are  as  agree- 
able objects  of  contemplation  as  youth,  good  looks, 
fair  skins,  pretty  frocks,  open  air,  much  exercise,  and 
an  indescribable  air  of  "  breeding  "  can  make  them. 
An  English  patrician  child  is  one  of  the  prettiest  and 
most  wholesome  things  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

He  goes  to  play  lawn  tennis  with  them  and  their 
youngest  brother  Cecil,  called  the  Babe ;  and  Lady 
CTsk,  under  her  rose-lined  umbrella,  sits  as  umpire, 
while  her  lord  saunters  off  disconsolately  to  an  inter- 
view with  his  steward.  In  these  times  those  inter- 
views are  of  an  unbroken  melancholy,  and  always 
result  in  producing  the  conviction  in  his  mind  that 
Great  Britain  cannot  possibly  last  out  another  year. 
Without  the  nobility  and  gentry  what  will  she  be  ? 
and  they  will  all  go  to  the  lands  they've  bought  in 
America,  if  they're  in  luck,  and  if  they  aren't  will 
have  to  turn  shoeblacks. 

"  But  the  new  electorate  won't  have  its  shoes 
blacked, — won't  even  have  any  shoes  to  black," 
suggests  Mr.  Lanyon,  the  land-steward,  who  began 
life  as  an  oppidan  at  Eton  and  captain  of  an  Eight, 
but  has  been  glad  to  take  refuge  from  the  storm  on 


THE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST.  27 

the  estates  of  his  old  Eton  comrade,  a  trust  which  he 
discharges  with  as  much  zeal  as  discretion,  dwelling 
contentedly  in  a  rose-covered  grange  on  the  edge  of 
the  home-woods  of  Surrenden.  If  Boom  finds  things 
at  all  in  order  when  he  comes  into  possession,  it  will 
be  wholly  due  to  John  Lanyon. 

In  one  of  the  pauses  of  their  game  the  tennis- 
players  hear  the  brake  and  the  omnibus  returning. 
None  of  those  whom  they  bring  will  be  visible  until 
luncheon  at  two  o'clock. 

"  Have  you  anybody  very  nice,  Lady  Usk  ? "  asks 
Brandolin  of  his  hostess. 

She  hesitates ;  there  are  some  women  that  he  would 
call  nice,  but  then  they  each  have  their  man.  "  I 
hardly  know,"  she  answers,  vaguely.  "  You  don't  like 
many  people,  if  I  remember " 

"  All  ladies,  surely,"  says  Brandolin,  with  due 
gravity. 

"  I'm  sure  you  don't  like  Grandma  Sophy,"  says  the 
saucy  Babe,  sitting  cross-legged  in  front  of  him.  He 
means  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Derry,  a  very  unpleas- 
ant person  of  strong  principles,  called  by  the  profane 
"  Sophia,  by  the  grace  of  God,"  because  she  ruled  Ire- 
land in  a  viceroyalty  of  short  duration  and  long- 
enduring  mischief.  She  and  Brandolin  do  not  agree, 
a  fact  which  the  Babe  has  seen  and  noted  with  the  all- 
seeing  eyes  of  a  petted  boy  who  is  too  much  in  his 
mother's  drawing-rooms. 


28  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  I  plead  guilty  to  having  offended  her  Grace 
Sophia,"  says  Brandolin,  "  but  I  conclude  that  Lady 
Usk's  guests  are  not  all  like  that  most  admirable 
lady." 

The  Babe  and  his  sisters  laugh  with  much  irreverent 
enjoyment ;  her  Grace  is  not  more  appreciated  by  hei 
grandchildren  than  she  was  by  Ireland. 

"  If  I  had  known  you  were  going  to  be  so  kind  as 
to  remember  us,  I  would  have  invited  some  of  your 
friends,"  says  his  hostess,  without  coming  to  the  rescue 
of  her  august  mother's  name.  "  I  am  so  sorry ;  but 
there  is  nobody  I  think  who  will  be  very  sympathetic 
to  you.  Besides,  you  know  them  all  already." 

"  And  is  that  fatal  to  sympathy  ?  What  a  cruel 
suggestion,  dear  Lady  Usk !  " 

*'  Sympathy  is  best  new,  like  a  glove.  It  fits  best ; 
you  don't  see  any  wrinkles  in  it  for  the  first  hour." 

"  What  cynicism !  Do  you  know  that  I  am  very 
fond  of  old  gloves?  But,  then,  I  never  was  a 
dandy " 

"  Lord  Brandolin  will  like  Madame  Sabaroff,"  says 
Dodo,  a  very  eveitte  young  lady  of  thirteen. 

"  Fair  prophetess,  why  ?  And  who  is  Madame 
Sabaroff?  A  second  O.  K.,  a  female  Stepniak?" 

"  What  are  those  ? "  says  Dodo.  "  She  is  very 
handsome,  and  a  princess  in  her  own  right." 

"  She  gave  me  two  Ukraine  ponies  and  a  real 
droschky,"  says  the  Babe. 


TEE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST.  29 

"  And  Boom  a  Circassian  mare,  all  white,  and  each 
of  us  a  set  of  Siberian  turquoises,"  says  Lilie. 

"  Her  virtues  must  be  as  many  as  her  charms,"  says 
Brandolin. 

"She  is  a  lovely  creature,"  adds  Lady  Usk,  "but  I 
don't  think  she  is  your  style  at  all ;  you  like  fast 
women  who  make  you  laugh." 

"  My  tastes  are  catholic  where  your  adorable  sex  is 
in  question,"  says  Brandolin.  "  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
do  like  fast  women ;  they  are  painful  to  one's  vanity ; 
they  flirt  with  everybody." 

Lady  Usk  smiles.  "  The  season  before  last,  I 
recollect " 

"  Dearest  lady,  don't  revert  to  pre-historic  times. 
Nothing  is  so  disagreeable  as  to  think  this  year  of 
what  we  liked  last  year." 

"  It  was  Lady  Leamington  last  year !  "  cries  the  ter- 
rible Babe. 

Brandolin  topples  him  over  on  the  grass  and  hoists 
him  up  on  his  own  shoulders.  "  You  precocious 
rascal !  What  will  you  be  when  you  are  twenty  ?  " 

"  Babe's  future  is  a  thing  of  horror  to  contemplate," 
says  his  mother,  smiling  placidly. 

"  Who  is  Madame  Sabaroff  ?  "  asks  Brandolin,  again, 
with  a  vague  curiosity. 

"A  princess  in  her  own  right;  a  god-daughter  of 
the  Emperor's,  says  Dodo.  "  She  is  so  handsome, 
and  her  jewels — you  never  saw  such  jewels." 


30  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  Her  father  was  Chancellor,"  adds  her  mother,  "  and 
her  husband  held  some  very  high  place  at  court,  I 
forget  what." 

"  Held?    Is  he  disgraced,  then,  or  dead?" 

**  Oh,  dead  j  that  is  what  is  so  nice  for  her,"  says 
Dodo. 

"Heartless  Dodo!"  says  Brandolin.  "Then  if  I 
marry  you  four  years  hence  I  must  kill  myself  to  be- 
come endeared  to  you  ?  " 

"I  should  pity  you  indeed  if  you  were  to  marry 
Dodo,"  says  Dodo's  mother.  "  She  has  not  a  grain  of 
any  human  feeling,  except  for  her  dog." 

Dodo  laughs.  She  likes  to  be  called  heartless ;  she 
thinks  it  is  chic  and  grown-up ;  she  will  weep  over 
a  lame  puppy,  a  beaten  horse,  a  dead  bird,  but  she 
is  "hard  as  nails  to  humans,"  as  her  brother  Boom 
phrases  it. 

"  Somebody  will  reign  some  day  where  the  Skye 
reigns  now  over  Dodo's  soul.  Happy  somebody  !  "  says 
Brandolin.  "  I  shall  be  too  old  to  be  that  somebody. 
Besides,  Dodo  will  demand  from  fate  an  Adonis  and  a 
Croesus  in  one  !  " 

Dodo  smiles,  showing  her  pretty  white  teeth ;  she 
likes  the  banter  and  the  flirtation  with  some  of  her 
father's  friends.  She  feels  quite  old;  in  four  years' 
time  her  mother  will  present  her,  and  she  means  to 
marry  directly  after  that. 

"  When  does  this  Russian  goddess  who  drops  ponies 


THE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST.  31 

and  turquoises  out  of  the  clouds  arrive  here?"  asks 
Brandolin,  as  he  picks  up  his  racquet  to  resume  the 
game. 

"  She  won't  be  here  for  three  days,"  says  Lady  Usk. 

"Then  I  fear  I  shall  not  see  her." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  You  must  stay  all  the  month,  at 
least." 

"You  are  too  good,  but  I  have  so  many  engage- 
ments." 

"Engagements  are  made  to  be  broken.  I  am  sure 
George  will  not  let  you  go." 

"We  won't  let  you  go,"  cries  the  Babe,  dragging 
him  off  to  the  nets,  "  and  I'll  drive  you  this  afternoon, 
behind  my  ponies." 

"I  have  gone  through  most  perils  that  can  confront 
a  man,  Babe,  and  I  shall  be  equal  even  to  that,"  says 
Brandolin. 

He  is  a  great  favorite  with  the  children  at  Surrenden, 
where  he  has  always  passed  some  weeks  of  most  years 
ever  since  they  can  remember,  or  he  either,  for  he  was 
a  godson  and  ward  of  the  late  Lord  Usk,  and  always 
welcome  there.  His  parents  died  in  his  infancy :  even 
a  long  minority  failed  to  make  him  a  rich  man.  He 
has,  however,  as  he  had  said,  enough  for  his  not  ex- 
travagant desires,  and  is  able  to  keep  his  old  estate  of 
St.  Hubert's  Lea,  in  Warwickshire,  unembarrassed. 
His  chief  pleasure  has  been  travelling  and  sailing,  and 

he  has  travelled  and  sailed  wherever  a  horse  or  a  drome- 
3 


32  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

dary,  a  schooner  or  a  canoe,  can  penetrate.  He  has 
told  some  of  his  travels  in  books  so  admirably  written 
that,  mirdbile  dictu!  they  please  both  learned  people 
and  lazy  people.  They  have  earned  him  a  reputation 
beyond  the  drawing-rooms  and  clubs  of  his  own  fash- 
ionable acquaintances.  He  has  even  considerable  learn- 
ing himself,  although  he  carries  it  so  lightly  that  few 
people  suspect  it.  He  has  had  a  great  many  passions  in 
his  life,  but  they  have  none  of  them  made  any  very  pro- 
found impression  on  him.  When  any  one  of  them  has 
grown  tiresome  or  seemed  likely  to  enchain  him  more 
than  he  thought  desirable,  he  has  always  gone  to  Central 
Asia  or  the  South  Pole.  The  butterflies  which  he  has 
broken  on  his  wheel  have,  however,  been  of  that  order 
which  is  not  crushed  by  abandonment,  but  mends  itself 
easily  and  soars  to  new  spheres.  He  is  incapable  of 
harshness  to  either  man  or  woman,  and  his  character 
has  a  warmth,  a  gayety,  and  a  sincerity  in  it  which 
endear  him  inexpressibly  to  all  his  friends.  His  friend- 
ships have  hitherto  been  deeper  and  more  enduring  than 
his  amours.  He  is,  on  the  whole,  happy, — as  happy 
as  any  thinking  being  can  be  in  this  world  of  anomalies 
and  purposeless  pains. 

"But  then  you  always  digest  all  you  eat,"  Usk  re- 
marks to  him,  enviously. 

"Put  it  the  other  way  and  be  nearer  the  point," 
says  Brandolin.  "  I  always  eat  what  I  can  digest,  and 
I  always  leave  off  with  an  appetite." 


THE  UNEXPECTED  GUEST.  83 

"I  should  be  content  if  I  could  begin  with  one," 
says  Usk. 

Brandolin  is  indeed  singularly  abstemious  in  the 
pleasures  of  the  table,  to  which  the  good  condition  of 
his  nerves  and  constitution  may  no  doubt  be  attributed. 
"I  have  found  that  eating  is  an  almost  entirely  un- 
necessary indulgence,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  books. 
"  If  an  Arab  can  ride,  fight,  kill  lions,  and  slay  French- 
men on  a  mere  handful  of  pulse  or  of  rice,  why  cannot 
we  live  on  it  too?"  Whereat  Usk  wrote  once  on 
the  margin  of  the  volume,  in  pencil,  "  Why  should 
we?" 

The  author,  seeing  this  one  day,  wrote  also  on  the 
margin,  "  For  the  best  of  all  reasons :  to  do  away  with 
dyspepsia  and  with  doctors,  who  keep  their  carriages 
on  our  indigestion  and  make  fifty  thousand  a  year  each 
out  of  it." 

Usk  allowed  that  the  reason  was  excellent ;  but  then 
the  renunciation  involved  was  too  enormous. 


84  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OTHER  HUSBANDS'   WIVES    AND    OTHER  WIVES'  HUS 
BANDS. 

LET  it  not  for  an  instant  be  supposed  that  the  guests 
of  Surrenden  are  people  looked  in  the  least  coldly  01 
shyly  on  by  society.  Not  they.  They  go  to  drawing- 
rooms,  which  means  nothing ;  they  are  invited  to  state 
balls  and  state  concerts,  which  mean  much.  They  are 
among  the  most  eminent  leaders  of  that  world  of 
fashion  which  has  of  late  revolutionized  taste,  temper, 
and  society  in  England.  Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon  sails 
a  little  near  the  wind,  perhaps  because  she  is  careless, 
and  now  and  then  Lady  Dawlish  has  been  "talked 
about,"  because  she  has  a  vast  number  of  debts  and  a 
lord  who  occasionally  makes  scenes ;  but,  with  these 
exceptions,  all  these  ladies  are  as  safe  on  their  pedestals 
as  if  they  were  marble  statues  of  chastity.  That  their 
tastes  are  studied  and  their  men  asked  to  meet  them 
everywhere  is  only  a  matter  of  delicate  attention,  like 
the  bouquets  which  the  housekeeper  sets  out  in  their 
bedrooms  and  the  new  novels  which  are  laid  on  their 
writing-tables. 

**I  like  my  house  to  be  pleasant,"  says  Dorothy 


WIVES  AND  HUSBANDS.  35 

Usk,  and  she  does  not  look  any  further  than  that : 
as  for  people's  affairs,  she  is  not  supposed  to  know 
anything  about  them.  She  knows  well  enough  that 
lona  would  not  come  to  her  unless  she  had  asked  the 
Marquise  de  Caillac,  and  she  is  fully  aware  that  Law- 
rence Hamilton  would  never  bestow  the  cachet  of  his 
illustrious  presence  on  Surrenden  unless  Mrs.  Went- 
worth  Curzon  brought  thither  herfourgons,  her  maids, 
her  collie  dog,  her  famous  emeralds,  and  her  no  less 
famous  fans.  Of  course  she  knows  that,  but  she  is 
not  supposed  to  know  it.  Nobody  except  her  hus- 
band would  be  so  ill-bred  as  to  suggest  that  she  did 
know  it ;  and  if  any  of  her  people  should  ever  by  any 
mischance  forget  their  tact  and  stumble  into  the  news- 
papers, or  become  notorious  by  any  other  accident,  she 
will  drop  them,  and  nobody  will  be  more  surprised  at 
the  discovery  of  their  naughtiness  than  herself.  Yet 
she  is  a  kind  woman,  a  virtuous  woman,  a  very  warm 
friend,  and  not  more  insincere  in  her  friendships  than 
any  one  else ;  she  is  only  a  hostess  of  the  last  lustre 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  woman  who  knows  her 
London  and  follows  it  in  all  its  amazing  and  illimit- 
able condonations  as  in  its  eccentric  and  exceptional 
severities. 

The  guests  are  numerous ;  they  might  even  be  said 
to  be  miscellaneous,  were  it  not  that  they  all  belonged 
to  the  same  set.  There  is  Dick  Wootton,  who  believes 
himself  destined  to  play  in  the  last  years  of  the  nine- 


36  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

teenth  century  the  part  played  by  Charles  Greville  in 
the  earlier.  There  is  Lord  Vanstone,  an  agreeable, 
eccentric,  unsatisfactory  valetudinarian,  who  ought  to 
have  done  great  things  with  his  life,  but  has  always 
been  too  indolent  and  had  too  bad  health  to  carry  out 
his  friends'  very  large  expectations  of  him.  There  is 
the  young  Duke  of  Whitby,  good-natured  and  foolish, 
with  a  simple  pleasant  face  and  a  very  shy  manner. 
"  If  I  had  that  ass's  opportunities  I'd  make  the  world 
spin,"  says  Wriothesley  Ormond,  who  is  a  very  poor 
and  very  witty  member  of  Parliament,  and  also,  which 
he  values  more,  the  most  popular  member  of  the 
Marlborough.  There  is  Lord  lona,  very  handsome, 
very  silent,  very  much  sought  after  and  spoilt  by 
women.  There  is  Hugo  Mountjoy,  a  pretty  young 
fellow  in  the  Guards,  with  a  big  fortune  and  vague 
ideas  that  he  ought  to  "  do  something  ; "  he  is  not  sure 
what.  There  is  Lawrence  Hamilton,  who,  as  far  as  is 
possible  in  an  age  when  men  are  clothed,  but  do  not 
dress,  gives  the  law  to  St.  James  Street  in  matters 
of  male  toilet.  There  is  Sir  Adolphus  Beaumanoir, 
an  ex-diplomatist,  admirably  preserved,  charmingly 
loquacious,  and  an  unconscionable  flirt,  though  he  is 
seventy.  Each  of  these  happy  or  unhappy  beings  has 
the  lady  invited  to  meet  him  in  whom  his  affections 
are  supposed  to  be  centred,  for  the  time  being,  in 
those  tacit  but  potent  relations  which  form  so  large  a 
portion  of  men's  and  women's  lives  in  these  days.  It 


WIVES  AND  HUSBANDS.  37 

is  this  condonance  on  the  part  of  his  wife  which  George 
Usk  so  entirely  denounces,  although  he  would  be  very 
much  astonished  and  very  much  annoyed  if  she  made 
any  kind  of  objections  to  inviting  Dulcia  Waver- 
ley.  Happily  there  is  no  Act  of  Parliament  to  com- 
pel any  of  us  to  be  consistent,  or  where  would  any- 
body be  ? 

Lady  Dolgelly,  much  older  than  himself,  and  with  a 
faille  de  couturidre  as  all  her  intimate  friends  delight 
to  reveal,  is  supposed  to  be  indispensable  to  the  ex- 
istence of  His  Grace  of  Whitby;  Lady  Leamington 
is  not  less  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  Wriothesley 
Ormond.  Mr.  Wootton  would  be  supposed  incapable 
of  cutting  a  single  joke  or  telling  a  single  good  story 
unless  his  spirits  were  sustained  by  the  presence  of 
Mrs.  Faversham,  the  prettiest  brunette  in  the  universe, 
for  whom  Worth  is  supposed  to  make  marvellous  com- 
binations of  rose  and  gold,  of  amber  and  violet,  of  deep 
orange  and  black,  and  of  a  wondrous  yellow  like  that 
of  the  daffodil,  which  no  one  dares  to  wear  but  herself. 
Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon  is  the  momentary  goddess  of 
Lawrence  Hamilton  ;  and  Lord  lona,  as  far  as  he  has 
ever  opened  his  handsome  mouth  to  say  anything 
"  serious,"  has  sworn  himself  the  slave  of  Madame  de 
Caillac.  Sir  Adolphus  has  spread  the  aegis  of  his 
semi-paternal  affection  over  the  light  little  head  of  that 
extravagant  little  beauty,  Lady  Dawlish  ;  whilst  Hugo 
Mountjoy  is  similarly  protected  by  the  prescient  wis- 


38  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

dom  and  the  rare  experience  of  his  kindest  of  friends, 
Lady  Arthur  Audley. 

Sir  Hugo  and  several  other  gilded  youths  there 
present  are  all  exact  patterns  of  one  another,  the 
typical  young  Englishman  of  the  last  years  of  this 
curious  century ;  the  masher  pure  and  simple  ;  close- 
shaven,  close-cropped,  faultlessly  clothed,  small  of 
person,  small  of  features,  stiff,  pale,  insignificant,  po- 
lite, supercilious,  indifferent ;  occasionally  amusing, 
but  never  by  any  chance  original ;  much  concerned  as 
to  health,  climate,  and  their  own  nerves :  often  talk- 
ing of  their  physicians,  and  flitting  southward  before 
cold  weather  like  swallows,  though  they  have  nothing 
whatever  definite  the  matter  with  them. 

These  young  men  are  all  convinced  that  England  is 
on  the  brink  of  ruin,  and  they  talk  of  it  in  the  same 
tone  with  which  they  say  that  their  cigarette  is  out,  or 
the  wind  is  in  the  east.  The  Throne,  the  Church,  the 
Lords,  and  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles  are  all  going 
down  pell-mell  next  week,  and  it  is  very  shocking ; 
nevertheless,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not 
be  studious  of  their  digestions  and  very  anxious  about 
the  parting  of  their  hair. 

It  never  occurs  to  them  that  they  and  their  fathers' 
battue-shooting,  pigeon-shooting,  absenteeism,  clubism, 
and  general  preference  for  every  country  except  their 
own,  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  bringing 
about  this  impending  cataclysm.  That  all  the  grand 


WIVES  AND  HUSBANDS.  39 

old  houses  standing  empty,  or  let  to  strangers,  among 
the-  rich  Herefordshire  pastures,  the  green  "Warwick- 
shire woods,  the  red  Devon  uplands,  the  wild  West- 
moreland fells,  may  have  also  something  to  do  with  it, 
never  occurs  to  them.  That  while  they  are  flirting  at 
Aix,  wintering  at  Pau,  throwing  comfits  at  Rome, 
losing  on  the  red  at  Monaco,  touring  in  California,  or 
yawning  in  Berlin,  the  demagogue's  agents  are  whis- 
pering to  the  smock-frocks  in  the  meadows,  and  pour- 
ing the  gall  of  greed  and  hatred  into  the  amber  ale  of 
the  village  pothouse,  never  occurs  to  them.  If  any 
one  suggests  it,  they  stare :  "  such  a  beastly  climate, 
you  know  ;  nobody  can  stand  it.  Live  in  the  country  ? 
Oh,  Lord !  who  could  live  in  the  country  ?  " 

And  then  they  wonder  that  Mr.  George  has  replaced 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  and  that  Joseph  Chamberlain's 
voice  is  heard  instead  of  Edmund  Burke's. 

Their  host  could  kick  them  with  a  sensation  of  con 
siderable  satisfaction.  Their  neatness,  smallness,  and 
self-complacency  irritate  him  excessively.  The  bloods 
of  George  the  Fourth's  time  at  least  were  men, — so  he 
says. 

"  You  do  these  poor  boys  injustice,"  says  Brandolin. 
"  When  they  get  out  in  a  desert,  or  are  left  to  roast 
and  die  under  the  equator,  they  put  off  all  their  affec- 
tations with  their  starched  cambric,  and  are  not  alto- 
gether unworthy  of  their  great-grandfathers.  Britons 
are  still  bad  ones  to  beat  when  the  trial  comes." 


40  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  They  must  leave  their  constitutions  at  their  clubs, 
then,  and  their  nervous  system  in  their  hat-boxes," 
growls  Usk.  "If  you  are  like  those  namby-pamby 
fellows  when  you  are  twenty,  Boom,  I'll  put  a  bullet 
through  your  head  myself,"  he  says  to  his  heir  one 
morning,  when  that  good-looking  and  high-spirited 
boy  has  come  back  from  Suffolk. 

Boom  laughs.  He  is  a  careless,  high-spirited,  ex- 
travagant lad,  and  he  does  not  at  present  lean  towards 
the  masher  type.  Gordon  is  in  his  head ;  that  is  his 
idea  of  a  man.  The  country  had  one  hero  in  this 
century,  and  betrayed  him,  and  honors  his  betrayer ; 
but  the  hearts  of  the  boys  beat  truer  than  that  of  the 
House  of  Commons  and  the  New  Electorate.  They 
remember  Gordon,  with  a  noble,  headlong,  quixotic 
wish  to  go  and  do  likewise.  That  one  lonely  figure 
standing  out  against  the  yellow  light  of  the  desert 
may  perhaps  be  as  a  pharos  to  the  youth  of  his  nation, 
and  save  them  from  the  shipwreck  which  is  nigh. 

"  Curious  type,  the  young  fellows,"  says  Brandolin, 
musingly.  "I  don't  think  they  will  keep  England 
what  our  fathers  and  grandfathers  made  it.  I  don't 
think  they  will,  even  if  Chamberlain  and  Company 
will  let  them,  which  they  certainly  won't." 

«*  Tell  you  what  it  is,"  says  Usk,  "  it  all  comes  of 
having  second  horses  hunting,  and  loaders  behind  you 
out  shooting." 

"  You  confound  cause  and  effect.    The  race  wouldn't 


WIVES  AND  HUSBANDS.  41 

have  come  to  second  horses  and  men  to  load  if  it  hadn't 
degenerated.  Second  horses  and  men  to  load  indicate 
in  England  just  what  pasties  of  nightingales'  tongues, 
and  garlands  of  roses,  indicated  with  the  Romans, — 
effeminacy  and  self-indulgence.  The  Huns  and  the 
Goths  were  knocking  at  their  doors,  and  Demos  and 
the  Debacle  are  knocking  at  ours.  History  repeats 
itself,  which  is  lamentable,  for  its  amazing  tendency  to 
tell  the  same  tale  again  and  again  makes  it  a  bore. 

"  I  should  like  to  know,  by  the  way,"  he  continues, 
"  why  English  girls  get  taller  and  taller,  stronger  and 
stronger,  and  are  as  the  very  palm  of  the  desert  for 
vigor  and  force,  whilst  the  English  young  man  gets 
smaller  and  smaller,  slighter  and  slighter,  and  has  the 
nerves  of  an  old  maid  and  the  habits  of  a  valetudi- 
narian. It  is  uncommonly  droll  ;  and  if  the  dis- 
parity goes  on  increasing,  the  ladies  will  not  only  get 
the  franchise,  but  they  will  carry  the  male  voter  to  the 
polling-place  on  their  shoulders." 

"  As  the  French  women  did  their  husbands  out  of 
some  town  that  surrendered  in  some  war,"  said  Boom, 
who  was  addicted  to  historical  illustration  and  never 
lost  occasion  to  display  it. 

"  They  won't  carry  their  husbands"  murmurs  Bran. 
dolin.  "  They'll  drive  them,  and  carry  somebody  else." 

"  "Will  they  have  any  husbands  at  all  when  they  can 
do  as  they  like  ?  "  says  Boom. 

"Probably  n**V  says  Brandolin.     "My  dear  boy, 


42  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

what  an  earthly  paradise  awaits  you  when  you  shall  be 
of  mature  acre,  and  shall  have  seen  us  all  descend  one 

O     * 

by  one  into  the  tomb,  with  all  our  social  prejudices 
and  antiquated  ways  !  " 

"  I  dare  say  he'll  be  a  navvy  in  New  Guinea  by  that 
time,  and  all  his  acres  here  will  be  being  let  out  by  the 
state  at  a  rack-rent  which  the  people  will  call  free 
land,"  says  the  father  with  a  groan. 

"  Very  possible,  too,"  replied  Brandolin. 

The  boy's  eyes  go  thoughtfully  towards  the  land- 
scape beyond  the  windows,  the  beautiful  lawns,  the 
smiling  gardens,  the  rolling  woods.  A  look  of  reso- 
lution comes  over  his  fair  frank  face. 

"  They  shan't  take  our  lands  without  a  fight  for  it, 
he  says,  with  a  flush  on  his  cheeks. 

"  And  the  fight  will  be  a  fierce  one,"  says  Brandolin, 
with  a  sigh,  "  and  I  am  afraid  it  is  in  Mr.  Gladstone's 
*  dim  and  distant  future,' — that  is  to  say,  very  near  at 
hand  indeed." 

"  Well,  I  shall  be  ready,"  says  the  lad.  Both  his 
father  and  Brandolin  are  silent,  vaguely  touched  by 
the  look  of  the  gallant  and  gracious  boy,  as  he  stands 
there  with  the  sun  in  his  brave  blue  eyes,  and  thinking 
of  the  troubled  time  which  will  await  his  manhood  in 
this  green  old  England,  cursed  by  the  spume  of  wordy 
demagogues,  and  hounded  on  to  envenomed  hatreds 
and  causeless  discontents,  that  the  professional  poli- 
tician may  fatten  on  her  woes. 


WIVES  AND  HUSBANDS.  43 

What  will  Boom  live  to  see? 

It  will  be  a  sorry  day  for  the  country  when  her 
wooded  parks  and  stately  houses  are  numbered  with 
the  things  that  are  no  more. 

Brandolin  puts  his  arm  over  the  boy's  shoulder,  and 
walks  away  with  him  a  little  way  under  the  deep 
boughs  of  yew. 

"  Look  here,  Boom,"  he  says  to  him,  "  you  won't 
care  to  be  like  those  fellows,  but  you  don't  know  how 
hard  it  is  to  get  out  of  the  fashion  of  one's  set,  to 
avoid  going  with  the  stream  of  one's  contemporaries. 
Nobody  can  say  what  will  be  the  style  of  the  'best 
men  '  when  you're  of  age,  but  I'm  much  afraid  it  will 
still  be  the  Masher.  The  Masher  is  not  very  vicious, 
he  is  often  cultured,  he  is  a  more  harmless  animal  than 
he  tries  to  appear,  but  he  is  weak ;  and  we  are  coming 
on  times,  or  times  are  coming  on  us,  when  an  English 
gentleman  will  want  to  be  very  strong  if  he  is  to  hold 
his  own  and  save  his  country  from  shame  in  her  old 
age.  Don't  be  conventional.  Scores  of  people  who 
would  be  ashamed  to  seem  virtuous  haven't  courage 
to  resist  appearing  vicious.  Don't  talk  all  that  odious 
slang  which  is  ruining  English.  Don't  get  into  that 
stupid  way  of  counting  the  days  and  seasons  by  steeple, 
chases,  coursing-meetings,  flat-races,  and  the  various 
different  things  to  be  shot  at.  Sport  is  all  very  well 
in  its  place,  but  Squire  Allworth  beating  the  tur- 
nips with  a  brace  of  setters  is  a  different  figure  to 


44  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Lord  Newgold  sending  his  hampers  of  pheasants  to 
Leadenhall.  Certainly,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  has  no  more 
right  to  make  a  misdemeanor  of  our  covert-shooting, 
and  put  the  axe  to  our  home  woods,  than  we  have  to 
make  a  misdemeanor  of  his  shoes  and  stockings,  or  put 
an  axe  to  his  head.  But  I  think  if  of  our  own  accord 
we  centre  our  minds  and  spent  our  guineas  less  on 
our  preserves,  we  might  be  wiser,  and  if  we  grudged 
our  woods  less  to  the  hawk  and  the  woodpecker  and 
the  owl  and  the  jay,  and  all  the  rest  of  their  native 
population,  we  should  be  wiser  still.  I  never  see  a 
beast  or  a  bird  caught  or  dead  in  a  keeper's  trap  but 
that  I  think  to  myself  that  after  all,  if  we  ourselves 
are  caught  in  the  end  between  the  grinning  jaws  of 
anarchy,  it  will  really  be  only  partial  justice  on  our 
injustice.  Only  I  fear  that  it  won't  better  the  birds 
and  beasts  very  much,  even  when  we  all  go  to  prison 
for  the  crime  of  property,  and  Bradlaugh  will  grub  up 
their  leafy  haunts  with  a  steam  plough  from  Chicago." 


ENGLISH  CONVENTIONALITY.  45 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ENGLISH  CONVENTIONALITY. 

MEANWHILE,  let  the  country  be  going  to  the  dogs 
as  it  may,  Surrenden  is  full  of  very  gay  people,  and 
all  its  more  or  less  well-matched  doves  are  cooing  at 
Surrenden,  whilst  the  legitimate  partners  of  their 
existences  are  diverting  themselves  in  other  scenes, 
Highland  moors,  German  baths,  French  chateaux, 
Channel  yachting,  or  at  other  English  country  houses. 
It  is  George  Usk's  opinion  that  the  whole  thing  is 
immoral :  he  is  by  no  means  a  moral  person  himself. 
His  wife,  on  the  contrary,  thinks  that  it  is  the  only 
way  to  have  your  house  liked,  and  that  nobody  is  sup- 
posed to  know  anything,  and  that  nothing  of  that  sort 
matters ;  she  is  a  woman  who  on  her  own  account  has 
never  done  anything  that  she  would  in  the  least  mind 
having  printed  in  the  Morning  Post  to-morrow. 

"  Strange  contradiction  !  "  muses  Brandolin.  "  Here 
is  George,  who's  certainly  no  better  than  he  should  be, 
hallooing  out  for  Dame  Propriety,  and  here's  my  lady, 
who's  always  run  as  straight  as  a  crow  flies,  making 
an  Agapemone  of  her  house  to  please  her  friends.  To 


46  A  HOUSE-PARI'Y. 

the  pure  all  things  are  pure,  I  suppose ;  but  if  purity 
can  stand  Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon  and  Lady  Dawlish, 
I  think  I  shall  select  my  wife  from  among  les  jolies 
impures" 

However,  he  takes  care  audibly  to  hold  up  his 
hostess's  opinions  and  condemn  her  lord's. 

"The  poor  little  woman  means  well,  and  only  likes 
to  be  popular,"  he  reflects ;  "  and  we  are  none  of  us 
so  sure  that  we  shan't  want  indulgence  some  day." 

Brandolin  is  very  easy  and  elastic  in  his  principles, 
as  becomes  a  man  of  the  world  ;  he  is  even  considered 
by  many  of  his  friends  a  good  deal  too  lax  in  all  his 
views ;  but  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  there  is  a  vague 
dislike  to  similar  looseness  of  principle  in  women.  He 
may  have  been  glad  enough  to  avail  himself  of  the 
defect ;  that  is  another  matter ;  he  does  not  like  it, 
does  not  admire  it :  licentiousness  in  a  woman  seems 
to  him  a  fault  in  her  taste ;  it  is  as  if  she  wore  fur  slip- 
pers with  her  court  train.  "  Of  course,"  he  will  say, 
apologetically,  "  this  idea  of  mine  is  born  of  the  ab- 
surd English  conventionality  which  sleeps  in  all  of  us ; 
nothing  better ;  an  Englishman  is  always  conventional 
somewhere,  let  him  live  as  he  will." 

He  himself  is  the  most  unconventional  of  beings, 
appalls  his  county,  terrifies  his  relations,  and  irrevoc- 
ably offends  the  bishop  of  his  diocese ;  he  has  lived 
with  Arabs,  Bohemians,  and  wild  men  of  the  woods, 
and  believes  that  he  has  not  such  a  thing  as  prejudice 


ENGLISH  CONVENTIONALITY.  47 

about  him  ;  yet  at  the  bottom  of  his  soul  there  is  this 
absurd  feeling  born  of  sheer  conventionality, — he  can- 
not thoroughly  like  a  light-minded  woman.  Absurd, 
indeed,  in  the  times  in  which  his  lot  is  cast !  He  is 
quite  ashamed  of  it. 

Dorothy  Usk  does  not  favor  the  modern  mode  of  hav- 
ing relays  of  guests  for  two  or  three  days  ;  she  thinks  it 
makes  a  country  house  too  like  an  hotel.  She  wishes 
her  people  to  be  perfectly  well  assorted,  and  then  to 
stay  with  her  at  least  a  week,  even  two  weeks  or  three 
weeks.  People  do  not  often  object:  Orme,  Denton, 
and  Surrenden  are  all  popular  places,  and  Surrenden  is 
perhaps  most  popular  of  all. 

"An  ideal  house,"  says  Brandolin,  who  would  not 
stay  a  day  where  he  was  not  as  free  as  air. 

"  It's  too  much  like  an  hotel,"  grumbles  the  master 
of  it,  "  and  an  hotel  where  the  table-d''h6te  bell  rings  to 
deaf  ears.  Lord !  I  remember  in  my  poor  mother's 
days  everybody  had  to  be  down  to  breakfast  at  nine 
o'clock  every  morning  as  regularly  as  if  they  were 
charity  children,  and  the  whole  lot  of  'em  were  marched 
off  to  church  on  Sunday  whether  they  liked  it  or  not. 
The  villagers  used  to  line  the  path  across  the  fields  to 
see  the  great  folks  pass.  Now  it's  as  much  as  ever 
Dolly  can  do  to  get  a  woman  or  two  up  in  time  to  go 
with  her.  How  things  are  changed,  by  Jove  !  And  it 
isn't  so  very  long  ago,  either." 

"The  march  of  intellect,   my  dear  George,"  says 


48  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Brandolin  ;  "  neither  le  bon  Dieu  nor  we  are  great  folks 
any  longer." 

"  Well,  I  think  it's  a  pity,"  sighs  Usk.  "  Every- 
body was  happier  then,  and  jollier  too,  though  we  do 
tear  about  so  to  try  and  get  amused." 

"  There  is  still  nothing  to  prevent  you  going  to  sleep 
in  the  big  pew  if  it  pleases  you,"  replies  Brandolin ; 
"  and  Lawrence  Hamilton  always  goes  that  he  may  look 
at  Mrs.  Curzon's  profile  as  she  sings:  she  is  really 
saintly  then.  I  think  Sunday  service  is  to  English- 
women what  confession  is  to  Catholic  ladies  :  it  sweeps 
all  the  blots  off  the  week's  tablets.  It  is  convenient,  if 
illogical." 

"You  are  very  irreligious,"  says  his  host,  who  is 
invariably  orthodox  when  orthodoxy  doesn't  interfere 
with  anything. 

"  Not  more  so  than  most  people,"  says  Brandolin.  "  I 
have  even  felt  religious  when  I  have  been  alone  in  the 
savannas  or  in  the  jungle.  I  don't  feel  so  in  a  wooden 
box  covered  with  red  velvet,  with  a  curate  bawling  in 
my  ears  about  the  hewing  in  pieces  of  Agag." 

"  That's  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  says  Usk :  "  we're 
bound  to  set  an  example." 

"That's  why  you  doze  in  public,  and  Mrs.  Curzon 
wears  her  big  pearls,  to  lead  the  school-children  in  the 
way  they  should  go." 

"  That's  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  repeats  Lord  TJsk, 
somewhat  crossly.  He  has  a  comfortable  if  indistinct 


ENGLISH  CONVENTIONALITY.  49 

idea  that  he  does  something  patriotic,  patriarchal,  and 
highly  praiseworthy  in  getting  up  an  hour  earlier  than 
usual  one  Sunday  out  of  three,  and  putting  on  a  tall 
hat,  a  frock-coat,  and  a  pair  of  new  gloves,  to  attend 
the  village  church  for  morning  service  when  he  is  at 
Orme,  Denton,  or  Surrenden  in  fine  weather. 

If  he  sleeps,  what  of  that  ?  There  are  curtains  to 
the  pew,  and  nobody  sees  him  except  the  Babe,  who 
takes  fiendish  rapture  in  catching  big  flies  and  releasing 
them  from  a  careful  little  hand  to  alight  on  his  father's 
forehead  or  nose.  The  Babe  would  define  the  Sunday 
morning  as  a  horrid  bore  tempered  by  blue-bottles. 

"  What  a  curiously  conventional  mind  is  the  Eng- 
lish mind!"  thinks  Brandolin,  when  he  is  alone, 
"  Carlyle  is  right :  the  gig  is  its  standard.  The  gig 
is  out  of  fashion  as  a  vehicle,  but  the  national  mind 
remains  the  same  as  in  the  age  of  gigs, — content  with 
the  outside  of  things,  clinging  to  the  husk,  to  the 
shell,  to  the  outward  appearance,  and  satisfied  with 
these.  My  dear  friend  puts  on  his  chimney-pot,  then 
takes  it  off  and  snores  in  his  pew,  and  thinks  that  he 
has  done  something  holy  which  will  sustain  both 
Church  and  State,  as  he  thinks  that  he  prays  when  he 
buries  his  face  in  his  hat  and  creases  his  trousers  on  a 
hassock!  Mysterious  consolations  of  the  unfathom- 
able human  breast  I " 


50  4  HOUSE-PASTY. 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS. 

A  FEW  new  people  have  come  by  the  brake,  and 
make  their  appearance  at  luncheon.  More  come  by 
the  five-o'clock  train,  and  are  visible  at  six-o'clock  tea, 
which  is  always  to  be  had  in  the  library  any  time  be- 
fore seven :  dinner  at  all  the  Usk  houses  is  always  at 
nine.  Brandolin's  doctrines  do  not  prevail  with  any 
of  his  acquaintances,  although  he,  unlike  most  pro- 
fessors, emphasizes  them  by  example. 

Among  the  people  who  come  by  the  latter  train  are 
the  famous  Mr.  Wootton,  a  man  very  famous  at  Lon- 
don dinner-parties,  and  Lady  Gundrede  Vansittart, 
whose  dinners  are  the  best  in  London. 

"  Where  would  those  two  people  be  if  you  brought 
the  pulse  and  the  rice  you  recommend  into  fashion  ?  " 
says  their  host  to  Brandolin.  "  Take  'em  away  from 
the  table,  they'd  be  good  for  nothing.  He  wouldn't 
say  *  Bo'  to  a  goose,  and  she  wouldn't  be  worth  leaving 
a  card  upon.  Believe  me,  my  dear  Guy,  such  esprit  as 
there  is  left  in  us  is  only  brought  out  by  eating." 

"I  think  you  invert  all  your  reasonings,"  says 
Brandolin.  "  Say  rather,  that  too  much  eating  has 
destroyed  all  esprit.  Don't  we  eat  all  day  long  every- 


A  RUSSIAN  PtilNCESS.  51 

where,  or  at  least  are  expected  to  do  so  ?  You  lament 
your  ruined  digestion.  It  is  impossible  to  digest  when 
time  is  only  counted  by  what  our  beloved  Yankees 
call  square  meals  (why  square  I  fail  to  fathom),  and 
for  women  it  is  worse  than  for  us,  because  they  eat 
such  quantities  of  sweet  things  we  don't  touch,  and 
then  the  way  they  go  in  for  caviare  bread-and-butter, 
and  anchovy  sandwiches,  and  all  kinds  of  rich  cakes, 
and  deux  doigts  de  Madere  or  glasses  of  kuramel  at 
the  tea-hour, — it  is  frightful !  I  wonder  they  have  any 
complexions  at  all  left,  even  with  the  assistance  of  all 
the  *  secrets  de  Venus?  " 

"You  won't  alter  'em,  my  dear  fellow,"  replies 
Usk,  "  if  you  put  yourself  out  about  it  ever  so  much. 
If  you  were  to  marry  a  savage  out  of  Formoso,  or  an 
Esquimaux,  she'd  take  kindly  to  the  caviare  and  the 
kiimmel  before  a  week  was  out,  if  you  brought  her  to 
Europe.  Why,  look  at  dogs, — you  may  keep  'em  on 
biscuit  and  tripe  if  they  live  in  the  kennels,  but  if  they 
once  come  to  the  dining-room  they'll  turn  their  noses 
up  at  a  beef-steak  if  it  isn't  truffled  !  " 

"  Dogs,  at  least,  stop  short  of  the  kummel,"  says 
Brandolin ;  "  but  if  you  were  to  put  together  the 
sherry,  the  dry  champagne,  the  liqueurs  at  tea,  the 
brandy  in  the  chasse  at  dinner,  which  a  fashionable 
woman  takes  in  the  course  of  the  day  (not  counting 
any  pick-me-up  that  she  may  require  in  her  own 
room),  the  amount  would  be  something  enormous, 


52  A  UOUSE-PABTY. 

— incredible !  You  would  not  believe  the  number 
of  women  who  have  cured  me  of  an  unhappy  pas- 
sion for  them  by  letting  me  see  what  a  lot  they  could 
drink." 

"You  will  adore  the  Sabaroff,  then.  She  never 
touches  anything  that  I  see,  except  tea." 

"Admirable  person !  I  am  ready  to  adore  her. 
Tell  me  more  about  her.  By  the  way,  who  is  she  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  must  go  to  Dolly  for  biographies  of  her 
foreigners.  I  can't  keep  even  their  names  in  my 
head." 

"  Foreigners !  What  an  expression !  "  cries  Dorothy 
Usk,  in  disdain.  "  Since  steam  effaced  frontiers,  no- 
body but  insular  people  like  ourselves  ever  use  such  a 
term.  Nationalities  are  obliterated." 

She  is  very  fond  of  Xenia  Sabaroff :  she  has  a  great 
many  warm  attachments  to  women  who  help  to  make 
her  house  attractive. 

"Nationalities  are  still  discernible  in  different  to- 
baccos," murmurs  Brandolin.  "  The  Havana  won't  ac- 
knowledge an  equal  in  the  Cavour." 

"  Dolly  don't  know  anything  about  her,"  continues 
Usk,  clinging  to  the  subject. 

"  Oh,  my  dear !  "  cried  his  wife,  shocked,  "  when 
she  is  the  niece  of  the  great  Chancellor  and  her  mother 
was  a  Princess  Dourtza." 

"  You  don't  know  anything  about  her,"  repeats  Usk, 
with  that  unpleasant  obstinacy  characteristic  of  men 


A  B  USSIAN  PKINCESS.  53 

when  they  talk  to  their  wives.  "  You  met  her  in 
Vienna  and  took  one  of  your  crazes  for  her,  and  she 
may  have  sent  a  score  of  lovers  to  Siberia,  or  deserve 
to  go  there  herself,  for  anything  you  can  tell.  One  can 
never  be  sure  of  anything  about  foreigners." 

"How  absurd  you  are,  and  how  insular/"  cries 
Dorothy  Usk,  again.  "  '  Foreigners  ! '  As  if  there 
were  any  foreigners  in  these  days,  when  Europe  is  like 
one  family !  " 

"  A  family  which,  like  most  families,  squabbles  and 
scratches  pretty  often,  then,"  says  Usk, — which  seems 
to  his  wife  a  reply  too  vulgar  to  be  worthy  of  contra- 
diction. He  is  conscious  that  Xenia  Sabaroff  is  a 
very  great  lady,  and  that  her  quarterings,  backed  by 
descent  and  alliance,  are  wholly  irreproachable, — in- 
deed, written  in  that  libra  cToro,  the  "  Almanach  de 
Gotha,"  for  all  who  choose  to  read. 

Her  descent  and  her  diamonds  are  alike  immaculate, 
but  her  character? — he  is  too  old-fashioned  a  Briton 
not  to  think  it  very  probable  that  there  is  something 
louche  there. 

Usk  is  a  Russophobist,  as  becomes  a  true  Tory. 
He  has  a  rooted  impression  that  all  Russians  are  spies 
when  they  are  not  swindlers ;  much  as  in  the  early 
years  of  the  century  his  grandsire  had  been  positive 
that  all  Frenchmen  were  assassins  when  they  were  not 
dancing-masters.  The  White  Czar  has  replaced  the 
Petit  Caporal,  and  the  fur  cap  the  cocked  hat,  in  the 


54  A  HOUSE-PARTY 

eyes  of  Englishmen  of  Usk's  type,  as  an  object  of 
dread  and  detestation.  He  would  never  be  in  the  least 
surprised  if  it  turned  out  that  the  real  object  of  Ma- 
dame Sabaroff  s  visit  to  Surrenden  were  to  have  possible 
opportunities  to  examine  the  facilities  of  Weymouth 
as  a  landing-place  for  Cossacks  out  of  Muscovite  cor- 
vettes. 

"  Russians  are  tremendous  swells  at  palaver,"  he  says, 
with  much  contempt,  "  gammon  you  no  end  if  you  like 
to  believe  'em :  they've  always  some  political  dodge  or 
other  behind  it  all." 

"  I  don't  say  she  isn't  an  agreeable  woman,"  he  con- 
tinues, now:  his  admiration  of  Madame  Sabaroff  is 
much  mitigated  by  his  sense  that  she  has  a  rather 
derisive  opinion  of  himself.  "  I  don't  say  she  isn't 
an  agreeable  woman,  but  she  gives  me  the  idea  of 
artificiality, — insincerity, — mystery." 

"  Just  because  she's  a  Russian ! "  cries  his  wife,  with 
disdain. 

"  My  dear  George,"  observes  Brandolin,  "  there  are 
preconceived  ideas  about  all  nationalities.  As  a  rule, 
they  are  completely  false.  The  received  Continental 
idea  is  that  an  Englishman  is  a  bluff,  blunt,  unpleas- 
ant, opinionated  person,  very  cross,  very  clean  too  it  is 
true,  but  011  the  strength  of  his  tub  and  his  constitu 
tion  despising  all  the  rest  of  mankind.  Now,  how 
completely  absurd  such  an  opinion  is !  You  yourself 
are  an  example  of  the  suaviter  in  modo,  fortiter  in  re, 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  55 

of  which  the  true-blue  Briton  always  gives  so  admi- 
rable an  example." 

Usk  laughs,  but  sulkily  ;  he  has  the  impression  that 
his  beloved  friend  is  making  fun  of  him,  but  he  is  not 
quite  sure.  He  himself  believes  that  he  is  an  ideal 
Englishman ;  Brandolin  is  only  half  or  a  quarter  of  one, 
he  does  not  shoot,  wears  furs  in  winter,  only  drinks 
very  light  Rhenish  wine,  never  goes  to  any  church,  and 
never  cuts  his  hair  very  short.  Added  to  this,  he  has 
no  fixed  political  opinion,  except  a  general  impression 
that  England  and  the  world  in  general  are  going  down- 
hill as  fast  as  they  can,  "  tobogganing  "  as  they  say  in 
Canada,  at  the  rate  of  fifty  miles  a  minute,  to  land  in 
the  slough  of  Socialism  and  be  picked  out  of  it  by 
some  military  despot,  a  democracy  invariably  ending  in 
absolutism. 

"  What  ridiculous  rubbish  !  "  says  his  wife.  "  You 
might  as  well  say  that  the  demoiselles-mannequins  at 
"Worth's  or  Rodrigue's  are  conspiring  for  the  Orlean- 
ists  when  they  try  on  my  clothes." 

"  They  are  conspiring  for  the  ruin  of  your  family," 
says  Usk,  with  a  groan.  "  Whose  purse  can  stand 
those  Paris  prices  ?  " 

"  What  an  irrelevant  remark !  "  cries  Lady  Usk. 
"  You  are  always  dragging  money-questions  into  every- 
thing." 

"  Those  faiseurs,  as  you  call  'em,  continues  Usk,  un- 
heeding, "  are  at  the  root  of  half  the  misery  of  society. 


56  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Women  get  into  debt  up  to  their  eyes  for  their  toilets, 
ami  they  don't  care  what  abomination  they  do  if  they 
get  enough  out  of  it  to  go  on  plunging.  Hundred- 
guinea  gowns  soon  make  up  a  pretty  total  when  you 
change  'em  three  times  a  day." 

"  And  if  women  are  guys  aren't  the  men  furious  ?  " 
asks  his  wife.  "  Even  if  they  try  to  economize,  aren't 
they  always  taunted  with  being  dowdies  ?  You,  none 
of  you,  know  anything  about  the  cost  of  things,  and  you 
expect  everybody  to  be  bien  mise  on  a  halfpenny  a  day. 
When  Boom  saw  me  at  Ascot  this  year  he  stared  at 
me,  and  whispered  to  me,  '  Oh,  I  say,  mother  !  you've 
got  the  same  bonnet  on  you  had  at  the  Oaks.  I  do 
hope  the  other  fellows  won't  notice  it.'  That  is  how 
he  will  speak  to  his  wife  some  day ;  and  yet  I  dare  say, 
like  you,  he  will  expect  her  to  get  her  bonnets  from 
Virot  at  ten  francs  apiece  !  " 

Lady  Usk  is  angry  and  roused. 

"  Look  at  my  poor  little  sister,"  she  goes  on. 
"  What  a  life  that  brute  Mersey  leads  her  about 
money !  All  those  dreadfully  plain  girls  to  dress,  and 
nothing  to  do  it  on,  and  yet  if  they  are  not  all  well 
got  up  wherever  they  go,  he  swears  he  is  ashamed 
to  be  seen  with  them.  You  can't  dress  well,  you  can't 
do  anything  well,  without  spending  money ;  and  if 
you  haven't  money  you  must  get  into  debt.  That  is 
as  clear  as  that  two  and  two  are  four.  When  ever 
do  men  remember  their  own  extravagances  ?  You 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  57 

smoke  ten  cigars  a  day  ;  your  cigars  cost  a  shilling  or 
eighteenpence  each, — that  is  ten  or  fifteen  shillings  a 
day ;  five  pounds  a  week,  not  counting  your  cigarettes ! 
Good  heavens!  five  pounds  a  week  for  sheer  silly 
personal  indulgence  that  your  doctors  tell  you  will 
canker  your  tongue  and  dry  up  your  gastric  juice! 
At  all  events,  our  toilets  don't  hurt  our  digestion  ;  and 
what  would  the  world  look  like  if  women  weren't 
well  dressed  in  it  ?  Your  cigars  benefit  nobody,  and 
only  make  your  teeth  yellow." 

"Well,  in  a  year  they  cost  about  what  one  ball- 
gown does  that's  worn  twice." 

"  I  always  wear  mine  three  times,  even  in  London," 
says  Dorothy  Usk,  with  conscious  virtue.  "  But  I 
don't  see  any  sin  in  spending  money.  I  think  it 
ought  to  be  spent.  But  you  are  always  dragging 
money-questions  into  everything,  and  Boom  says  that 
the  Latin  person  whom  you  and  Lord  Brandolin  are 
always  quoting  declares  most  sensibly  that  money 
should  always  be  regarded  as  a  means,  never  as  an 
end ;  and  if  it  is  to  be  a  means  to  anything,  must  not 
it  be  spent  before  it  can  become  so  ?  " 

"  That's  neither  here  nor  there,"  replies  her  lord ; 
"  and  if  Boom  only  reads  his  classics  upside  down  like 
that  he'd  better  leave  'em  alone." 

"  You  are  never  content.  Most  men  would  be  de- 
lighted if  a  boy  read  at  all" 

"  I  don't  know  why,  I'm  sure,"  replies  Usk,  drearily. 


jflj  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  Reading's  going  out,  you  know  ;  nobody  '11  read  at 
all  fifty  years  hence :  poking  about  in  guinea-pigs' 
stomachs,  and  giving  long  names  to  insects  out  of  the 
coal-hole,  is  what  they  call  education  nowadays." 

"Frederic  Harrison  has  said  very  aptly,"  remarks 
Brandolin,  who  is  present  at  this  conjugal  colloquy, 
and  seeks  to  make  a  diversion  on  it,  "  that  the  boast 
of  science  is  to  eend  the  Indian  mails  across  seas  and 
deserts  in  nine  days,  but  that  science  cannot  put  in 
those  mail-bags  a  single  letter  equal  to  Voltaire's  or 
Sevigne's,  and  he  doubts  very  much  that  there  is  one." 

"  Its  an  ill  bird  that  fouls  its  own  nest,"  says  Usk, 
grimly :  "  still,  I'm  very  glad  if  those  scientific  prigs 
fall  out  among  themselves." 

"  I  think  some  people  write  charming  letters  still," 
says  Dorothy  Usk.  "  Of  course  when  one  is  in  a  hurry 
— and  one  is  almost  always  in  a  hurry " 

"  Hurry  is  fatal,  Lady  Usk,"  says  Brandolin.  "  It 
destroys  style,  grace,  and  harmony.  It  is  the  curse  of 
our  times.  The  most  lovely  thing  in  life  is  leisure ; 
and  we  call  it  progress  to  have  killed  it." 

"  Read  this  letter,"  says  his  hostess,  giving  him  one 
which  she  holds  in  her  hand.  "  There  is  nothing  pri- 
vate in  it,  and  nothing  wonderful,  but  there  is  a  grace 
in  the  expressions ;  whilst  the  English,  for  a  foreigner, 
is  absolutely  marvellous." 

"I  thought  there  were  no  foreigners?"  says  Usk« 
"  I  thought  steam  had  effaced  nationalities?" 


A  HU8SIAN  PRINCESS.  59 

His  wife  does  not  deign  to  reply. 

Brandolin  has  taken  the  letter  with  hesitation. 
"  Do  you  really  think  I  may  read  it?" 

"  When  I  tell  you  to  do  so,"  says  Dolly  Usk,  im- 
patiently. "  Besides,  there  is  nothing  in  it,  only  it  is 
pretty." 

Brandolin  reads;  it  is  on  very  thick  paper,  almost 
imperceptibly  scented,  with  a  princess's  crown  em- 
bossed on  it  and  a  gold  X. 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you,  dear  Lady  Usk,  to  have 
remembered  a  solitaire  like  myself  in  the  midst  of 
your  charming  children  and  your  many  joys."  ("My 
many  annoyances,  she  means,"  interpolates  Lady  Usk.) 
"I  will  be  with  you,  as  you  so  amiably  wish,  next 
Tuesday  or  Wednesday.  I  am  for  the  moment  in 
Paris,  having  been  this  month  at  Aix,  not  that  I  have 
any  aches  or  pains  myself,  but  a  friend  of  mine,  Marie 
Woronszoff,  has  many,  and  tries  to  cure  them  by  warm 
sunshine  and  the  cold  douches  which  her  physicians 
prescribe.  There  are  many  pleasant  people  here; 
everyone  is  supposed  to  be  very  ill  and  suffering 
agony,  but  everyone  laughs,  flirts,  plays,  sits  under 
the  little  tents  under  the  trees,  dances  at  the  Casino> 
and  eats  a  fair  dinner  as  usual,  so  that  if  Pallida  Mors 
be  indeed  among  us  she  looks  just  like  everyone  else. 
I  came  to  Aix  from  my  own  place  on  the  White  Sea, 
and  the  gay  groups,  the  bright  alleys,  the  green  em- 
bowered chalets,  and  the  goatherds  with  their  flocks 


60  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

which  come  tinkling  their  bells  down  the  hill-sides  in 
all  directions,  all  seemed  to  me  like  an  operetta  of 
Offenbach's,  spiritualized  and  washed  with  the  pure 
daylight  and  the  mountain-air,  but  still  Offenbach. 
How  are  your  children?  Do  they  still  care  for  me? 
That  is  very  sweet  of  them.  A  day  at  their  years  is 
as  long  as  a  season  at  mine.  Assure  them  of  my 
unforgetting  gratitude.  I  shall  be  pleased  to  be  in 
England  again,  and,  though  I  do  not  know  Surrenden, 
my  recollections  of  Orme  tell  me  cTavance  that  I  shall 
in  any  house  of  yours  find  the  kindest  of  friends,  the 
most  sympathetic  of  companions,  Say  many  things  to 
your  lord  for  me.  I  think  he  is  only  so  discontented 
because  the  gods  have  been  too  good  to  him  and 
given  him  too  completely  everything  he  can  desire." 
("  That's  all  she  knows  about  it !  "  says  Usk,  sotto  voce.) 
"  Au  revoir,  dear  Lady  Usk.  Receive  the  assurance 
of  my  highest  consideration,  and  believe  in  my  sincere 
regard.  J2ien  ct  vous. — XENIA  P.  SABAROFF." 

"  A  very  pretty  letter,"  says  Brandolin.  "  Many 
thanks."  And  he  restores  it  to  its  owner. 

"  Bunkum  !  "  says  Usk. 

"  Not  a  bit  in  the  world,"  says  his  wife,  with  contempt 
and  indignation.  "  /She  does  not  '  pose,'  if  you  do  !  " 

"My  dear  George,"  says  Brandolin,  "  you  are  one 
of  those  thorough-going  Britons  who  always  think 
that  everybody  who  doesn't  deal  in  disagreeable  re- 
marks must  be  lying.  Believe  me,  there  are  people 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  61 

who  really  see  '  the  side  that's  next  the  sun,' — even  in 
a  crab-apple." 

"  And  deuced  irritating,  too,  they  are,"  says  Usk, 
with  emphasis.  "'What  a  beastly  bad  day,'  one 
says  to  'em  when  it's  pouring  cats  and  dogs,  and  they 
answer,  '  Oh,  yes,  but  rain  was  so  wanted  we  must  be 
thankful.'  That's  the  kind  of  answer  that  would 
make  a  saint  swear." 

"You  are  not  a  saint,  and  you  swear  on  small 
provocation,"  replies  Brandolin.  "  To  look  at  rain 
in  that  light  argues  true  philosophy.  Unfortunately 
philosophy  is  too  often  strained  to  bursting  in  our 
climate,  by  having  to  contemplate  rain  destroying  the 
crops.  If  we  only  had  rain  when  we  wanted  it,  I 
think  the  most  unreasonable  among  us  would  view 
it  with  equanimity." 

Rain  is  at  that  moment  running  down  the  painted 
panes  of  the  Surrenden  casements,  and  driving  across 
the  lawns  and  terraces  of  the  Surrenden  gardens.  It 
makes  Usk  very  cross :  all  the  ensilage  in  the  world 
will  not  console  him  for  ripening  corn  beaten  down 
in  all  directions,  and  young  families  of  pheasants  dying 
of  cramp  and  pip  in  their  ferny  homes. 

"  Dig  a  big  pit  and  cram  your  soaked  grass  into  it : 
very  well,  I  don't  say  no,"  he  growls.  "But  what 
about  your  mildewed  wheat  ?  And  where  should  we 
be  if  we  had  to  undergo  a  blockade?  I'm  not  against 
making  more  pasture,  grazing's  all  very  well;  but  if 


62  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

there's  a  war  big  enough  to  sweep  the  seas  of  the  grain- 
ships  that  come  to  us  from  the  Colonies  and  the  United 
States,  where  shall  we  be  if  we've  nothing  to  eat  but 
our  own  beef  and  mutton  ?  Beef  and  mutton  are  solid 
food,  but  I  believe  we  should  all  go  mad  on  them  if 
we'd  no  bread  to  eat  too." 

"  I'm  all  for  pasture,"  replies  Brandolin ;  "  and  as 
the  British  Isles  can  never,  under  any  cultivation 
whatever,  feed  all  their  population,  we  may  as  well 
dedicate  ourselves  to  what  is  picturesque.  I  am 
fascinated  by  Laveleye's  portrait  of  England  when 
she  shall  have  turned  grazier  exclusively  :  it  is  lovely  : 
*  L'Angleterre  redeviendra  ce  qu'elle  etait  sous  les 
Tudors,  un  grand  pare  vert,  parseme  d'ormes  et  de 
ehenes,  ou  boeufs  et  moutons  se  promeneront  dans  des 
prairies  sans  limites.' " 

"  '  Prairies  sans  limites  ? '  when  the  land's  to  be  all 
sliced  up  in  little  bits  between  peasant  proprietors !  " 
says  Usk. 

"  I  don't  think  Laveleye  believes  in  peasant  proprie- 
tors, though  he  is  a  professor  of  social  economy." 

"  Social  economy! "  gays  Usk,  with  a  groan.  "  Oh, 
I  know  that  fool  of  a  word !  In  plain  English,  it 

means  ruin  all  round,  and  fortune  for  a  few  d d 

manufacturers." 

"  The  d d  manufacturer  is  the  principal  outcome 

of  two  thousand  centuries  of  Christianity,  civilization, 
and  culture.  The  result  is  not  perfectly  satisfactory  or 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  63 

encouraging,  one  must  admit,"  says  Brandolin,  as  he 
reaches  down  a  volume  of  eighteenth-century  memoirs, 
and  adds,  with  entire  irrelevancy  to  manufacturers  or 
memoirs,  "  Is  she  really  as  handsome  as  your  children 
tell  me?" 

"Who?"  asks  Usk.     "Oh,  the   Russian   woman 
yes,  very  good-looking.     Yes,  she  was  here  at  Easter, 
and  she  turned  their  heads." 

"  Has  she  any  lovers  older  than  Babe  ?  " 
"  She  has  left  'em  in  Russia  if  she  has." 
"  A  convenient  distance  to  leave  anything  at :  Italy 
and  Russia  are  the  only  countries  remaining  to  us  in 
which  Messalina  can  still  do  her  little  murders  com- 
fortably without  any  fuss  being  made." 

"  She  isn't  Messalina,  at  least  I  think  not.  But  one 
never  knows." 

"No,  one  never  knows  till  one  tries,"  says  Bran- 
dolin. And  he  wishes  vaguely  that  the  Russian 
woman  were  already  here.  He  is  fond  of  Surrenden, 
and  fond  of  all  its  people,  but  he  is  a  little,  a  very 
little,  bored.  He  sees  that  all  Lady  Usk's  doves  are 
paired,  and  he  does  not  wish  to  disturb  their  harmony, 
possibly  because  none  of  the  feminine  doves  attract 
him.  But  he  cannot  flirt  forever  with  the  children, 
because  the  children  are  not  very  often  visible,  and 
without  flirting  civilized  life  is  dull,  even  for  a  man 
who  is  more  easily  consoled  by  ancient  authors  off  the 

library- shelves  than  most  people  can  be. 
6 


64  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

This  conversation  occurs  in  the  forenoon  in  Lady 
Usk's  boudoir.  In  the  late  afternoon  in  the  library 
over  their  teacups  the  ladies  talk  of  Xenia  Sabaroff. 
It  is  perceptible  to  Brandolin  that  they  would  prefer 
that  she  should  not  arrive. 

"  Is  she  really  so  very  good-looking  ?  "  he  asks  of 
Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  replies  that  lady,  with  an  accent  of  de- 
preciation in  her  tones.  "  Yes,  she  is  very  handsome ; 
but  too  pale,  and  her  eyes  too  large.  You  know  these 
Russian  women  are  mere  paguets  de  nerfs,  shut  up  in 
their  rooms  all  day  and  smoking  so  incessantly  :  they 
have  all  that  is  worst  in  the  Oriental  and  Parisienne 
mixed  together." 

"  How  very  sad ! "  says  Brandolin.  "  I  don't  think 
I  have  known  one,  except  Princess  Kraskawa :  she 
went  sleighing  in  all  weathers,  wore  the  frankest  of 
gingerbread  wigs,  and  was  always  surrounded  by  about 
fifty  grandchildren." 

Princess  Kraskawa  had  been  for  many  years  ambas- 
sadress in  London. 

"  Of  course  there  are  exceptions,"  says  Nina  Curzon ; 
"but  generally,  you  know,  they  are  very  depraved, 
such  inordinate  gamblers,  and  so  fond  of  morphine,  and 
always  maladives" 

"  Ah,"  says  Brandolin,  pensively,  "  but  the  physica 
and  moral  perfection  of  Englishwomen  always  makes 
them  take  too  high  a  standard :  poor  humanity  toils 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  65 

hopelessly,  and  utterly  exhausted,  many  miles  behind 
them." 

"  Don't  talk  nonsense,"  says  Mrs.  Curzon ;  "  we  are 
no  better  than  our  neighbors,  perhaps,  but  we  are  not 
afraid  of  the  air,  we  don't  heat  our  houses  to  a  thousand 
degrees  above  boiling-point,  we  don't  gamble, — at  least 
not  much, — we  don't  talk  every  language  under  the 
sun  except  our  own,  and  yet  not  one  of  them  grammat- 
ically." 

"  Decidedly,"  reflected  Brandolin,  "  Lawrence  must 
have  looked  too  often  at  Madame  Sabaroff." 

"  Sabaroff  is  dead,  isn't  he  ?  "  he  asked,  aloud.  "  You 
know  I  have  been  out  of  society  for  a  year  :  the  whole 
map  of  Europe  gets  altered  in  one's  absence." 

"  Sabaroff  was  shot  in  a  duel  four  years  ago,"  replies 
Mrs.  Curzon, — "  a  duel  about  her." 

"  What  a  fortunate  woman !  To  get  rid  of  a  hus- 
band, and  to  get  rid  of  him  in  such  interesting  circum- 
stances !  C'est  le  comble  de  bonheur  /" 

"  That  depends.  With  her  it  resulted  in  her  exile 
from  court." 

"  Oh,  to  be  sure ;  when  Russians  are  naughty  they 
are  sent  to  live  on  their  estates,  as  riotous  children  are 
dismissed  to  the  nursery.  Was  she  compromised, 
then?" 

"  Very  much  compromised  ;  and  both  men  were 
killed,  for  the  adversary  of  Sabaroff  had  been  wounded 
mortally,  when,  with  an  immense  effort,  bo  fired  and 

shot  the  prince  through  the  lungs." 
5 


66  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"A  pretty  little  melodrama.  Who  was  the  op- 
ponent?" 

"  Count  Lustoff,  a  colonel  of  the  Guard.  I  wonder 
you  did  not  hear  of  it :  it  made  a  stir  at  the  time." 

"I  may  have  heard:  when  one  doesn't  know  the 
people  concerned,  no  massacre,  even  of  the  Innocents, 
makes  any  impression  on  one.  And  the  result  was  that 
the  lady  had  to  leave  the  imperial  court  ?  " 

"Yes:  they  do  draw  a  line  there" 

Brandolin  laughs ;  it  tickles  his  fancy  to  hear  Mrs. 
Wentworth  Curzon  condemning  by  implication  the 
laxity  of  the  court  of  St.  James. 

"  They  can't  send  us  to  our  estates,"  he  replies,  "  the 
lands  are  so  small  and  the  railways  are  so  close.  Else 
it  would  have  a  very  good  effect  if  all  our  naughty 
people  could  be  shut  up  inside  their  own  gates,  with 
nobody  to  speak  to  but  the  steward  and  the  rector. 
Can  you  imagine  anything  that  would  more  effectively 
contribute  to  correct  manners  and  morals  ?  But  how 
very  desolate  London  would  look !  " 

"You  think  everybody  would  be  exiled  inside  his 
own  ring-fence  1 " 

"  Her  own  ring-fence, — well,  nearly  everybody. 
There  would  certainly  be  no  garden-parties  at  Marl- 
borough  House." 

Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon  is  not  pleased ;  she  is  a 
star  of  the  first  magnitude  at  Marlborough  House. 

"  Why  does  she  take  this  absent  woman's  character 


A  RUSSIAN  PRINCESS.  67 

away  ? "  thinks  Brandolin,  with  a  sense  of  irritation. 
"  I  will  trust  the  Babe's  instincts  sooner  than  hers." 

He  does  not  know  Xenia  Sabaroff;  but  he  admires 
the  photograph  of  her  which  stands  on  the  boudoir 
table,  and  he  likes  the  tone  of  the  letter  written  from 
Aix.  With  that  spirit  of  contradiction  which  is  in- 
born in  human  nature,  he  is  inclined  to  disbelieve  all 
that  Nina  Curzon  has  told  him.  Lustoff  and  Saba- 
roff probably  both  deserved  their  fates,  and  the  de- 
parture from  the  court  of  St.  Petersburg  might  very 
possibly  have  been  voluntary.  He  has  a  vague  feeling 
of  tenderness  for  the  original  of  the  photograph.  It 
often  happens  to  him  to  fall  sentimentally  and  ephem- 
erally  in  love  with  some  unknown  woman  whose 
portrait  he  has  seen  or  of  whose  charms  he  has  heard. 
Sometimes  he  has  avoided  knowing  these  in  their 
actual  life,  lest  he  should  disturb  his  ideals.  He  is 
an  imaginative  man  with  a  great  amount  of  leisure  in 
which  to  indulge  his  fancies,  and  his  knowledge  of 
the  world  has  not  hardened  his  feelings  or  dulled  his 
fancy.  There  is  something  of  the  Montrose,  of  the 
Lord  Surrey,  in  him. 

"  To  think  of  all  one  knows  about  that  hussy,"  he 
muses,  as  he  smokes  a  cigar  in  his  bedroom  before 
dressing  for  dinner.  By  the  uncomplimentary  epithet 
he  means  Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon.  "  Such  a  good 
fellow  as  Fred  Curzon  is,  too,  a  man  who  might  have 
been  made  anything  of  if  she'd  only  treated  him 


68  -4  HOUSE-PARTf. 

decently.  When  he  married  her  he  adored  the 
ground  she  walked  on,  but  before  a  week  was  out  she 
began  to  fret  him,  and  jar  at  him,  and  break  him  in, 
as  she  called  it ;  he  was  too  poor  for  her,  and  too  slow 
for  her,  and  too  good  for  her,  and  she  was  vilely  cruel 
to  him, — it's  only  women  who  can  be  cruel  like  that, 
she's  had  more  lovers  than  anybody  living,  and  she's 
taken  every  one  of  'em  for  money  ;  nothing  but 
money.  Old  Melton  gave  her  the  Park-Lane  House, 
and  Glamorgan  gave  her  her  emeralds,  and  Dartmoor 
paid  her  Paris  bills  for  ten  years,  and  Riverston  takes 
all  her  stable-expenses.  Everything  she  does  is  done 
for  money ;  and  if  she  puts  any  heart  at  all  now  into 
this  thing  with  Lawrence,  it  is  only  because  she's  get- 
ting older  and  so  getting  jealous, — they  always  do  as 
they  get  on, — and  then  she  calls  Russians  dissolute 
and  depraved,  good  Lord !  " 

With  which  he  casts  aside  his  cigar,  and  resigns 
himself  to  his  servant's  hands  as  the  second  gong 
sounds. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  FIKST   MEETING. 

THE  very  bachelor  rooms  at  Surrender!  are  condu- 
cive to  revery  and  indolence,  cosily  comfortable  and 
full  of  little  attentions  for  the  guest's  bien-dtre,  among 
which  there  is  a  printed  paper  which  is  always  laid  on 
the  dressing-table  in  every  room  at  this  house :  it 
contains  the  latest  telegrams  of  public  news,  which 
come  every  afternoon  from  a  London  news-agency. 

"  I  dare  say  to  the  political  fellows  they  are  delight- 
ful," reflects  Brandolin,  as  he  glances  down  the  lines, 
"  but  to  me  they  unpleasantly  recall  an  uncomfortable 
world.  I  don't  dine  the  worse,  certainly,  for  knowing 
that  there  is  a  revolution  in  Patagonia  or  an  earth- 
quake in  Bolivia,  but  neither  do  I  dine  the  better  for 
being  told  that  the  French  government  is  destituant  all 
moderate  prefets  in  favor  of  immoderate  ones.  It  is 
very  interesting,  no  doubt,  but  it  doesn't  interest  me, 
and  I  think  the  possession  of  these  fresh  scraps  of 
prosaic  news  spoils  dinner-conversation." 

Brandolin  does  not  consider  it  conversation  to  say, 
"  Have  you  seen  so-and-so  ?  "  or,  "  What  a  sad  thing 


70  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

such-an-such  is,  isn't  it!  "  He  likes  persiflage,  he 
likes  banter,  he  likes  argument,  he  likes  antithesis,  he 
likes  brilliancy,  and  the  dinner-tables  of  the  epoch 
seldom  offer  these  good  things  with  their  Metternich 
hock  and  Mouton  Rothschild.  He  is  fond  of  talking 
himself,  and  he  can  be  also  a  very  good  listener.  If 
you  cannot  give  the  quid  pro  quo  in  hearing  as  in 
speaking,  you  may  be  immensely  clever,  but  you  will 
be  immediately  pronounced  a  bore,  like  Macaulay  and 
Madame  de  Stael.  Brandolin  likes  talking  not  for  the 
sake  of  showing  himself  off.  but  for  the  sake  of  being 
amused,  of  eliciting  the  opinions  and  observing  the 
minds  of  others,  and  he  is  convinced  that  if  the  con- 
versational art  were  cultured  as  it  used  to  be  in  Bour- 
bon Paris,  life  would  become  more  refined,  more  agree- 
able, more  sympathetic,  and  less  given  over  to  gross 
pleasures  of  the  appetites. 

"  Children  should  be  taught  to  talk,"  he  observes 
one  day  to  Lady  Usk,  "  and  they  should  not  be  allowed 
to  be  slovenly  in  their  speech  any  more  than  in  their 
dress.  You  would  not  let  them  enter  your  presence 
with  unbrushed  hair,  but  you  do  let  them  use  any  bald, 
slangy,  or  inappropriate  words  which  come  uppermost 
to  them.  There  is  so  much  in  the  choice  of  words !  A 
beautiful  voice  is  a  delicious  thing,  but  it  avails  little 
without  the  usage  of  apt  and  graceful  phrases.  Did 
you  ever  hear  Mrs.  Norton  sustain  a  discussion  or 
relate  an  anecdote  ?  It  was  like  listening  to  perfect 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  71 

phrasing  in  music.  When  she  died,  the  art  of  conver- 
sation died  with  her." 

"  We  are  always  in  such  a  hurry,"  says  Lady  Usk, 
which  is  her  habitual  explanation  of  anything  in  which 
her  generation  is  at  fault.  "  And  hurry  is  always  vul- 
gar, you  know,  as  you  said  the  other  day;  it  cannot 
help  itself." 

"  You  are  a  purist,  my  dear  Brandolin,"  says  Lady 
Dolgelly,  who  hates  him. 

"  '  Purity,  daughter  of  sweet  virtues  mild  ! '  "  mur- 
murs Brandolin.  "  Alas,  my  dear  ladies,  I  cannot 
hope  that  she  dwells  with  me  in  any  form  !  When 
she  has  a  home  in  your  own  gentle  breasts,  who  can 
hope  that  she  would  ever  take  shelter  in  a  man's?" 

"  How  impertinent  and  how  nasty  he  is ! "  thinks 
the  lady ;  and  she  detests  him  a  little  more  cordially 
than  before.  There  is  not  a  very  good  feeling  towards 
him  among  any  of  the  ladies  at  Surrenden  :  he  does 
not  make  love  to  them,  he  does  not  endeavor  to  alter 
existing  arrangements  in  his  favor ;  it  is  generally  felt 
that  he  would  not  care  to  do  so.  What  can  you  ex- 
pect from  a  man  who  sits  half  his  days  in  a  library  ? 

The  Surrenden  library  is  well  stored,  an  elegant 
and  lettered  lord  of  the  eighteenth  century  having 
been  a  bibliophile.  It  is  a  charming  room  panelled 
with  inlaid  woods,  and  with  a  ceiling  painted  after 
Tiepolo ;  the  bookcases  are  built  into  the  wall,  so  that 
the  books  look  chez  eux,  and  are  not  mere  lodgers  or 


72  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

visitors ;  oriel  windows  look  out  on  to  a  portion  of  the 
garden  laid  out  by  Beaumont.  One  window  has  been 
cut  down  to  the  ground,  an  anachronism  and  innova- 
tion indeed,  somewhat  impairing  the  uniformity  of  the 
room.  The  present  Lady  Usk  had  it  done,  but  one 
forgives  her  the  sacrilege  when  one  feels  how  pleasant 
it  is  to  walk  out  from  the  mellow  shadows  of  the 
library  on  to  the  smooth-shaven  grass  and  gather  a  rose 
with  one  hand  whilst  holding  an  eighteenth-century 
author  with  the  other. 

It  is  in  the  smaller  library  adjacent,  filled  with 
modern  volumes,  that  five-o'clock  tea  is  always  to  be 
had,  with  all  the  abundant  demoralizing  abominations 
of  caviare,  kummel,  etc.  It  is  a  gay  room,  with 
dessus-des-portes  after  Watteau  and  every  variety  of 
couch  and  of  lounging-chair.  "  Reading  made  easy  " 
somebody  calls  it.  But  there  is  little  reading  done 
either  in  it  or  in  the  big  library :  Brandolin  when  he 
goes  there  finds  himself  usually  alone,  and  can  com- 
mune as  he  chooses  with  Latin  philosophy  and  Gaulois 
wit. 

"  You  used  to  read,  George  ?  "  he  says  to  his  host,  in 
expostulation. 

"  Yes,  I  used, — ages  ago,"  says  Usk,  with  a  yawn. 

Brandolin  looks  at  him  with  curiosity. 

"  I  can  understand  a  man  who  has  never  read,"  he 
replies,  "but  I  cannot  understand  a  man  losing  the 
taste  for  reading  if  he  has  ever  had  it.  One  can  dwell 


THE  F1EST  MEETING.  73 

contented  in  Bceotia  if  one  has  never  been  out  of  it, 
but  to  go  back  to  Boeotia  after  living  in  Attica " 

"  It's  one's  life  does  it." 

u  What  life  ?    One  has  the  life  one  wishes." 

"That's  the  sort  of  thing  a  man  says  who  hasn't 
married." 

"My  dear  George,  you  cannot  pretend  your  wife 
would  prevent  your  reading  Latin  and  Greek,  or  even 
Sanscrit.  I  am  sure  she  would  much  sooner  you  read 
them  than — well,  than  do  other  things  you  do  do." 

"  I  don't  say  she  would  prevent  me,"  returns  the 
lord  of  Surrenden,  with  some  crossness,  "  but  it's  the 
kind  of  life  one  gets  into  that  kills  all  that  sort  of 
thing  in  one.  There  is  no  time  for  it." 

"  I  keep  out  of  the  life  :  why  don't  you  ?  " 

"  There's  no  time  for  anything,"  says  Usk,  gloomily. 
"There's  such  heaps  of  things  to  see  to,  and  such 
numbers  of  places  to  go  to,  and  then  one  lives  au  jour 
le  jour,  and  one  gets  into  the  swim  and  goes  on,  and 
then  there's  the  shooting,  and  when  there  isn't  the 
shooting  there's  the  season,  and  the  racing. 

"  I  lead  my  own  life,"  Brandolin  remarks. 

"  Yes ;  but  you  don't  mind  being  called  eccentric." 

"No;  I  don't  mind  it  in  the  least.  If  they  say 
nothing  worse  of  me  I  am  grateful." 

"  But  you  couldn't  do  it  if  you  had  all  my  places, 
and  all  my  houses,  and  all  my  brothers,  and  all  my 
family.  You're  a  free  agent.  I  declare  that  all  the 


74  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

time  goes  away  with  me  in  such  a  crowd  of  worries 
that  I've  hardly  a  second  to  smoke  a  cigarette  in,  in 
any  peace ! " 

Brandolin  smiles. 

A  sixth  part  of  most  days  his  host  passes  leaning 
back  in  some  easy-chair  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth, 
whether  his  venue  be  Surrenden,  Orme,  Denton,  the 
smoking-room  of  a  club,  or  the  house  of  a  friend, — 
whether  London  or  the  country.  Usk's  own  view  of 
himself  is  of  a  man  entirely  devoted  to,  and  sacrificed 
to,  business,  politics,  the  management  of  his  estates, 
and  the  million-and-one  affairs  which  perpetually  as- 
sail him ;  but  this  is  not  the  view  which  his  friends 
take  of  him. 

When  ever  is  the  view  that  our  friends  take  of  us 
our  view  ? 

"  Once  a  scholar  always  a  scholar,  it  seems  to  me," 
says  Brandolin.  "  I  could  as  soon  live  without  air  as 
without  books."  And  he  quotes  Cowley, — 

"  Books  should  as  business  entertain  the  light." 

"  You  don't  continue  the  quotation,"  says  Usk,  with 
a  smile. 

"  Autres  temps  autres  mceurs"  says  Brandolin.  He 
laughs,  and  gets  up :  it  is  four  in  the  afternoon ;  the 
delicious  green  garden  is  lying  bathed  in  warm  amber 
light;  one  of  the  peacocks  is  turning  round  slowly 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  75 

with  all  his  train  displayed ;  he  seems  never  to  tire  of 
turning  round. 

"  How  exactly  that  bird  is  like  some  politicians  one 
could  name  !  "  says  Brandolin.  "  Do  you  know  that 
this  charming  garden  always  reminds  me  of  St. 
Hubert's  Lea, — our  west  garden,  I  mean?  I  think 
the  same  man  must  have  laid  them  out.  Is  it  not 
Bulwer  Lytton  who  says  that  so  long  as  one  has  a 
garden  one  always  has  one  room  which  is  roofed  by 
heaven?" 

"A  heaven  mitigated  by  gardeners'  wages, — very 
considerably  mitigated,"  says  Usk. 

You  are  cynical,  George,  and  your  mind  is  running 
on  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence, — an  offence  against 
Nature  on  such  a  day  as  this.  There  is  nothing  so 
demoralizing  as  to  think  of  money." 

"  To  have  debts  and  not  to  think  of  'em  is  more  so  ; 
and  Boom " 

"  Sell  something  of  his  that  he  likes  very  much,  to 
pay  his  debts  :  that's  the  only  way  I  know  of  to  check 
a  boy  at  the  onset.  Your  father  did  it  with  me  the 
very  first  time  I  owed  twenty  pounds ;  and  he  read 
me  a  lesson  I  never  forgot.  I  have  been  eternally 
obliged  to  him  ever  since." 

"  What  did  he  sell  ?  " 

"My  cob, — a  cob  I  adored.  I  wept  like  a  child, 
but  he  didn't  see  my  tears.  What  I  saved  up  next 
half  to  trace  out  that  cob  and  buy  him  back  at  twice 


76  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

his  value, — what  I  denied  myself  to  make  up  the 
money, — nobody  would  believe ;  and  the  beast  wasn't 
easy  to  find :  some  dealer  had  taken  him  over  to 
Ireland." 

«  That  could  be  done  with  you,"  says  Usk  gloomily. 
"  It  would  be  no  use  to  do  it  with  Boom  :  his  mother 
would  buy  him  some  other  horse  the  next  day.  You've 
no  chance  to  bring  up  a  boy  decently  if  he's  got  a 
mother. 

"  The  reverse  is  the  received  opinion  of  mankind," 
said  Brandolin ;  "  but  I  believe  there's  something  to 
be  said  for  your  view.  No  end  of  women  have  no 
idea  of  bringing  up  their  children,  and  when  they 
ought  to  be  ordered  a  flogging  they  fondle  them." 

"Dolly  does,"  says  her  husband.  "What's  a 
woman's  notion  of  a  horse  ?  That  he  must  have  slen- 
der legs,  a  coat  like  satin,  and  be  fed  on  apples  and 
sugar :  still,  they  saw  his  mouth  till  he  half  dislocates 
his  neck,  and  tear  his  ribs  open  with  their  spur. 
They're  just  as  unreasonable  with  their  children. 

"  Who  is  that  woman  ? "  says  Brandolin,  making  a 
step  across  the  window  and  into  the  garden.  "  Now  I 
am  perfectly  certain  that  is  Madame  Sabaroff,  without 
your  saying  so." 

"  Then  I  needn't  say  so,"  replies  Usk.  "  I  wonder 
when  she  came.  They  didn't  expect  her  till  to- 
morrow." 

They  both  look  at  a  lady  in  one  of  the  distant  alleys 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  'i'i 

walking  between  the  high  green  walls.  She  is  dressed 
in  some  soft  cream-colored  stuff  with  quantities  of 
lace.  She  carries  a  sunshade  of  the  same  hue.  She 
has  a  tall  cane  in  her  other  .hand.  On  either  side  of 
her  are  the  Ladies  Alexandra  and  Hermione,  and  be- 
fore her  gambols  hi  his  white  sailor  clothes,  with  his 
blue  silk  stockings  and  his  silver  buckled  shoes,  the 
Babe. 

"  Decidedly  the  Sabaroff,"  says  Usk.  "  Won't  you 
come  and  speak  to  her  ?  " 

"  With  pleasure,"  says  Brandolin.  "  Even  if  the 
Babe  brains  me  with  the  cane ! " 

He  looks  very  well  as  he  walks  bareheaded  over  the 
the  grass  and  along  the  green  alley  ;  he  wears  a  loose 
brown  velvet  coat  admirably  made,  and  brown 
breeches  and  stockings ;  his  legs  are  as  well  made  as 
his  coat ;  the  sun  shines  on  his  curling  hair ;  there  is  a 
degag^  picturesque,  debonair,  yet  distinguished  look 
about  him,  which  pleases  the  eyes  of  Xenia  Sabaroff, 
as  they  watch  him  draw  near. 

"  Who  is  that  person  with  your  father  ?  "  she  asks. 
The  children  tell  her,  all  speaking  at  once. 

She  recognizes  the  name ;  she  has  heard  of  him 
often  hi  the  world,  and  has  read  those  books  which 
praise  solitude  and  a  dinner  of  herbs.  "  I  doubt  his 
having  been  alone  very  long,  however,"  she  reflects,  as 
she  looks  at  him.  A  certain  unlikeness  in  him  to 
Englishmen  in  general,  some  women  who  are  fond  of 


78  A  IIOUSE-PAETY. 

him  fancifully  trace  to  the  fact  that  the  first  Brandoliu 
was  a  Venetian,  who  fled  for  his  life  from  the  Re- 
public, and  made  himself  conspicuous  and  acceptable 
for  his  talents  alike  as  a  lutist  and  a  swordsman  at  the 
court  of  Henry  the  Second.  "It  can't  count,  its  so 
very  far  away,"  he  himself  objects;  but  perhaps  it 
does  count.  Of  all  things  ineffaceable,  the  marks  of 
race  are  the  most  indelible. 

The  Venetian  Brandolin  married  the  daughter  of  a 
Norman  knight,  and  his  descendants  became  affection- 
ate sons  of  England,  and  held  their  lands  of  St.  Hu- 
bert's Lea  safely  under  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  of  the 
Commonwealth,  and  of  the  Jacobites.  They  were  al- 
ways noticeable  for  scholarly  habits  and  artistic  tastes, 
and  in  the  time  of  George  the  Second  the  Lord  Bran- 
dolin of  the  period  did  much  to  enrich  his  family  man- 
sion and  diminish  the  family  fortunes  by  his  importa- 
tions of  Italian  sculptures  and  pictures  and  his  patron- 
age of  Italian  musicians.  The  house  at  St.  Hubert's 
Lea  is  very  beautiful,  but  it  requires  much  more  to 
keep  it  up  than  the  present  owner  possesses.  He  is 
often  urged  to  let  it,  but  he  scouts  the  idea.  "  You 
might  as  well  ask  me  to  sell  the  Brandolin  portraits, 
like  Charles  Surface,"  he  says,  angrily,  whenever  his 
more  intimate  friends  venture  on  the  suggestion.  So 
the  old  house  stands  in  its  wann-hued  and  casket-like- 
loveliness,  empty  save  for  his  occasional  visits  and  the 
presence  of  many  old  and  devoted  servants. 


THE  FI&ST  MEETING.  1$ 

"  An  interesting  woman,"  he  thinks  now,  as  he  ex- 
changes with  the  Princess  Sabaroff  the  usual  compli- 
ments and  commonplaces  of  a  presentation.  "  Russians 
ai%e  always  interesting :  they  are  the  only  women  about 
whom  you  feel  that  you  know  very  little ;  they  are  the 
only  women  who,  in  this  chatterbox  of  a  generation 
tout  en  dehors  as  it  is,  preserve  some  of  the  vague 
charm  of  mystery ;  and  what  a  charm  that  is  !  " 

His  reasons  for  admiring  her  are  not  those  of  the 
Babe  and  his  sisters,  but  he  admires  her  almost  as 
much  as  they.  Brandolin,  who  in  his  remote  travels 
has  seen  a  great  deal  of  that  simple  natm-e  which  is  so 
much  lauded  by  many  people,  has  a  great  appreciation 
of  well-dressed  women,  and  the  Madame  Sabaroff  is 
admirably  dressed,  from  her  long  loose  cream-colored 
gloves  to  her  bronze  shoes  with  their  miniature  dia- 
mond clasps. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you  ? "  whispers  the  Babe,  climbing 
up  behind  Brandolin. 

"  Yes  you  did,"  returned  Brandolin,  "  and  you  were 
quite  right ;  but  it  is  abominably  bad  manners  to 
whisper,  my  dear  Cecil." 

The  Babe  subsides  into  silence  with  hot  cheeks : 
when  anybody  calls  him  Cecil  he  is  conscious  that  he 
has  committed  some  flagrant  offence. 

"  Those  brats  are  always  bothering  you,  princess," 
says  their  father. 

"  They  are  very  kind  to  me,"  replies  Xenia  Sabaroff, 
6 


80  A  BOUKE-PAETY. 

in  English  which  has  absolutely  no  foreign  accent. 
"  They  make  me  feel  at  home !  What  a  charming 
place  this  is !  I  like  it  better  than  your  castle — what 
is  its  name  ? — where  I  had  the  pleasure  to  visit  you  at 
Easter." 

"  Orme.  Oh,  that's  beastly,  —  a  regular  barn : 
obliged  to  go  there  just  for  show,  you  know." 

"  Orme  was  built  by  Inigo  Jones,  and  the  ingratitude 
to  fortune  of  its  owner  is  a  constant  temptation  to 
Providence  to  deal  in  thunder-bolts,  or  have  matches 
left  about  by  housemaids,"  says  Brandolin. 

"  I  think  Lord  Usk  has  not  a  contented  mind,"  says 
Madame  Sabaroff,  amused. 

"  Contented  1  By  Jove,  who  should  be,  when  Eng- 
land's going  to  the  dogs  as  fast  as  she  can  ?  " 

"  In  every  period  of  your  history,"  says  the  prin- 
cess, "  your  country  is  always  described  as  going  head- 
long to  ruin ;  and  yet  she  has  not  gone  there  yet,  and 
she  has  not  done  ill." 

"  *  Our  constitution  is  established  on  a  mere  equi- 
poise, with  dark  precipices  and  deep  waters  all  round 
it.'  So  said  Burke,"  replies  Brandolin.  "  At  the  pres- 
ent moment  everybody  has  forgotten  the  delicacy  of 
this  nice  equipoise,  and  one  day  or  other  it  will  lose  its 
balance  and  topple  over  into  the  deep  waters,  and  be 
engulfed.  Myself,  I  confess  I  do  not  think  that  time 
is  very  distant." 

**  I  hope  it  is :  I  am  very  much  attached  to  Eng- 


THE  FI&ST  MEETING.  81 

land,"  replies  the  Princess  Xenia,  gravely,  "and  to 
naughty  English  boys,"  she  adds,  passing  her  hand 
over  the  shining  locks  of  the  Babe. 

"  She  must  be  in  love  with  an  Englishman,"  thinks 
Brandolin,  with  the  one-sided  construction  which  a 
man  is  always  ready  to  place  on  the  words  of  a 
woman.  "  Must  we  go  indoors?"  he  asks,  regretfully, 
as  she  is  moving  towards  the  house.  "  It  is  so  pleas- 
ant in  these  quaint  green  arbors.  To  be  under  a  roof 
on  such  a  summer  afternoon  as  this,  is  to  fly  in  the 
face  of  a  merciful  Creator  with  greater  ingratitude 
than  Usk's  ingratitude  to  Inigo  Jones." 

"  But  I  have  scarcely  seen  my  hostess,"  says  Madame 
Sabaroff ;  nevertheless,  she  resigns  herself  to  a  seat 
in  a  yew-tree  cut  like  a  helmet. 

There  are  all  manner  of  delightful  old-fashioned 
flowers,  such  flowers  as  Disraeli  gave  to  the  garden  of 
Corisande,  growing  near  in  groups  encircled  by  clipped 
box-edging. 

Those  disciples  of  Pallas  Athene  who  render  the 
happy  lives  of  the  Surrenden  children  occasionally  a 
burden  to  them  seize  at  that  moment  on  their  prey  and 
bear  them  off  to  the  school-room.  The  Babe  goes  to 
his  doom  sullenly;  he  would  be  tearful,  only  that 
were  too  unmanly. 

"Why  do  you  let  those  innocents  be  tortured, 
George  ?  "  asks  Brandolin. 

"  Books  should,  like  business,  entertain  the  day/' 
6 


82  A  HOU8E-PABTY. 

replies  TJsk:  "so  you  said,  at  least,  just  now.  Then 
governesses  are  of  the  same  opinion." 

"  That  is  not  the  way  to  make  them  love  books,  to  shut 
them  up  against  their  wills  on  a  summer  afternoon." 

"How  will  you  educate  your  children  when  you 
have  'em,  then  ?  " 

"  He  always  gets  out  of  any  impersonal  argument 
by  putting  some  personal  question,"  complains  Bran- 
dolin  to  Madame  Sabaroff.  "  It  is  a  common  device, 
but  always  an  unworthy  one.  Because  a  system  is 
very  bad,  it  does  not  follow  that  I  alone  of  all  men 
must  be  prepared  with  a  better  one.  I  think  if  I  had 
children  I  would  not  have  them  taught  in  that  way  at 
all.  I  should  get  the  wisest  old  man  I  could  find,  a 
Samuel  Johnson  touched  with  a  John  Ruskin,  and 
should  tell  him  to  make  learning  delightful  to  them, 
and  associated,  as  far  as  our  detestable  climate  would 
allow,  with  open-air  studies  in  cowslip  meadows  and 
under  hawthorn  hedges.  If  I  had  only  read  dear 
Horace  at  school,  should  I  ever  have  loved  him  as  I 
do  ?  No ;  my  old  tutor  taught  me  to  feel  all  the  de- 
light and  the  sweet  savor  of  him,  roaming  in  the  oak 
woods  of  my  own  old  place." 

"I  am  devoutly  thankful,"  says  his  host,  "that 
Dorothy  among  her  caprices  had  never  had  the  fancy 
you  have,  for  a  Dr.  Johnson  double  with  a  Ruskin,  to 
correct  my  quotations,  abuse  my  architecture,  and 
make  prigs  of  the  children." 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  83 

"  Prigs  !  "  exclaims  Brandolin.  "  Prigs !  When  did 
ever  real  scholarship  and  love  of  nature  make  anything 
approaching  to  a  prig?  Science  and  class-rooms  make 
prigs,  not  Latin  verse  and  cowslip  meadows." 

"That  is  true,  I  think,"  says  the  Princess  Xenia, 
with  her  serious  smile. 

"  If  they  are  beginning  to  agree  with  one  another  I 
shall  be  de  trop?  thinks  Usk,  who  is  very  good-nat- 
ured to  his  guests,  and  popular  enough  with  women 
not  to  be  resigned  to  play  what  is  vulgarly  termed 
"  second  fiddle  "  (though  why  an  expression  borrowed 
from  the  orchestra  should  be  vulgar  it  were  hard  to 
say).  So  he  goes  a  few  paces  off  to  speak  to  a  gar- 
dener, and  by  degrees  edges  away  towards  the  house, 
leaving  Brandolin  and  Madame  Sabaroff  to  themselves 
in  the  green  yew-helmet  arbor. 

Brandolin  is  in  love  with  his  subject,  and  does  not 
abandon  it. 

"  It  is  absurd,"  he  continues,  "  the  way  in  which  chil- 
dren are  made  to  loathe  all  scholarship  by  its  associa- 
tion with  their  own  pains  and  subjection.  A  child  is 
made  as  a  punishment  to  learn  by  rote  fifty  lines  of 
Virgil.  Good  heavens !  It  ought  rather  to  be  as  a 
reward  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  open  Virgil !  To 
walk  in  all  those  delicious  paths  of  thought  should  be 
the  highest  pleasure  that  he  could  be  brought  to  know. 
To  listen  to  the  music  of  the  poets  should  be  at  once 
his  privilege  and  his  recompense.  To  be  deprived  of 


84  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

books  should  be,  on  the  contrary,  his  cruellest  chastise- 
ment !" 

"  He  would  be  a  very  exceptional  child,  surely,"  says 
Madame  Sabaroff. 

"  I  was  not  an  exceptional  child,"  he  answers,  "  but 
that  is  how  I  was  brought  up  and  how  I  felt." 

a  You  had  an  exceptional  training,  then  ?" 

"  It  ought  not  to  be  exceptional :  that  is  just  the 
mischief.  Up  to  the  time  I  was  seventeen,  I  was 
brought  up  at  my  own  place  (by  my  father's  directions, 
in  his  will)  by  a  most  true  and  reverent  scholar,  whom 
I  loved  as  Burke  loved  Shackleton.  He  died,  God 
rest  his  soul,  but  the  good  he  left  behind  him  lives 
after  him :  whatever  grains  of  sense  I  have  shown,  and 
whatever  follies  I  have  avoided,  both  what  I  am  and 
what  I  am  not,  are  due  to  him,  and  it  is  to  him  that  I 
owe  the  love  of  study  which  has  been  the  greatest  con- 
solation and  the  purest  pleasure  of  my  life.  That  is 
why  I  pity  so  profoundly  these  poor  Rochefort  chil- 
dren, and  the  tens  of  thousands  like  them,  who  are 
being  educated  by  the  commonplace,  flavorless,  cram- 
ming system  which  people  call  education.  It  may  be 
education  ;  it  is  not  culture.  What  will  the  Babe  al- 
ways associate  with  his  Latin  themes  ?  Four  walls, 
hated  books,  inky,  aching  fingers,  and  a  headache. 
Whereas  I  never  look  at  a  Latin  line  in  a  newspaper, 
be  it  one  ever  so  hackneyed,  without  pleasure,  as  at  the 
face  of  an  old  friend,  and  whenever  I  repeat  to  myself 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  85 

the  words,  I  always  smell  the  cowslips  and  the  lilac  and 
the  hawthorn  of  the  spring  mornings  when  I  was  a  boy." 

Xenia  Sabaroff  looked  at  him  with  some  little  won- 
der and  more  approval. 

"  My  dear  lord,"  she  says  seriously,  "  I  think  in 
your  enthusiasm  you  forget  one  thing,  that  there  is 
ground  on  which  good  seed  falls  and  brings  forth 
flowers  and  fruit,  and  there  is  other  ground  on  which 
the  same  seed,  be  it  strewn  ever  so  thickly,  lies 
always  barren.  Without  underrating  the  influences 
of  your  tutor,  I  must  believe  that  had  you  been  edu- 
cated at  an  English  public  school,  or  even  in  a  French 
Lyce"e,  you  would  still  have  become  a  scholar,  still 
have  loved  your  books." 

"Alas,  madam,"  says  Brandolin,  with  a  little  sigh, 
"perhaps  I  have  only  been  what  Matthew  Arnold 
calls  a  '  foiled  circuitous  wanderer '  in  the  orbit  of  life ! " 

"I  imagine  that  you  have  not  very  often  been 
foiled,"  replies  the  lady,  with  a  smile,  "  and  wander- 
ing has  a  great  deal  to  be  said  in  its  favor,  especially 
for  a  man.  "Women  are  happiest,  perhaps,  at  anchor." 

"  Women  used  to  be  :  not  our  women.  Nous  avons 
change  tout  cela.  I  have  bored  you  too  much  with 
myself  and  my  opinions." 

"  No,  you  interest  me,"  says  his  companion  with  a 
serious  serenity  which  deprives  the  words  of  all  sound 
of  flattery  or  encouragement.  "  I  have  long  admired 
your  writings,"  she  adds,  and  Brandolin  colors  a  little 


86  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

with  gratification.  The  same  kind  of  phrase  is  said 
to  him  on  an  average  five  hundred  times  a  year,  and 
his  usual  emotion  is  either  ennui  or  irritation.  The 
admiration  of  fools  is  folly,  and  humiliates  him.  But 
the  admiration  of  so  lovely  a  woman  as  Xenia  Sa- 
baroff  would  lay  a  flattering  unction  to  the  soul  of 
any  man,  even  if  she  were  absolutely  mindless;  and 
she  gives  him  the  impression  that  she  has  a  good  deal 
of  mind,  and  one  out  of  the  common  order. 

"  My  writings  have  no  other  merit,"  he  says,  after 
the  expression  of  his  sense  of  the  honor  she  does  him, 
"  than  being  absolutely  the  chronicle  of  what  I  have 
seen  and  what  I  have  thought ;  and  I  think  they  are 
expressed  in  tolerably  pure  English,  though  that  is 
claiming  a  great  deal  in  these  times ;  for  since  John 
Newman  laid  down  the  pen  there  is  scarcely  a  living 
Briton  who  can  write  his  own  tongue  with  eloquence 
and  purity." 

"  I  think  it  must  be  very  nice  to  leave  off  wander- 
ing if  one  has  a  home,"  replies  Madame  Sabaroff,  with 
a  slight  sigh,  which  gave  him  the  impression  that, 
though  no  doubt  she  had  many  houses,  she  had  no 
home.  "  Where  is  your  place  that  you  spoke  of  just 
now  ? — the  place  where  you  learned  to  love  Horace  ?  " 

Brandolin  is  always  pleased  to  speak  of  St.  Hubert's 
Lea.  He  has  a  great  love  for  it  and  for  the  tradi- 
tions of  his  race,  which  makes  many  people  accuse  him 
of  great  family  pride,  though,  as  has  been  well  said 


THE  FIRST  MEETING.  87 

Apropos  of  a  greater  man  than  Brandolin,  it  is  rather 
that  sentiment  which  the  Romans  defined  as  piety. 
When  he  talks  of  his  old  home  he  grows  eloquent, 
unreserved,  cordial ;  and  he  describes  with  an  artist's 
touch  its  antiquities,  its  landscapes,  and  its  old-world 
and  sylvan  charms. 

"  It  must  be  charming  to  care  for  any  place  so  much 
as  that,"  says  his  companion,  after  hearing  him  with 
interest. 

"  I  think  one  cares  more  for  places  than  for  people," 
he  replies. 

"  Sometimes  one  cares  for  neither,"  says  Xenia 
Sabaroff,  with  a  tone  which  in  a  less  lovely  woman 
would  have  been  morose. 

"  One  must  suffice  very  thoroughly  to  one's  self  in 
such  a  case  ?  " 

"  Oh,  not  necessarily." 

At  that  moment  there  is  a  little  bustle  under  a  very 
big  cedar  near  at  hand ;  servants  are  bringing  out 
folding  tables,  folding  chairs,  a  silver  camp-kettle, 
cakes,  fruit,  cream,  liqueurs,  sandwiches,  wines,  all 
those  items  of  an  afternoon  tea  on  which  Brandolin 
has  animadverted  with  so  much  disgust  in  the  library 
an  hour  before.  Lady  Usk  had  chosen  to  take  these 
murderous  compounds  out  of  doors  in  the  west  garden. 
She  herself  comes  out  of  the  house  with  a  train  of  her 
guests  around  her. 

"Adieu   to  rational   conversation,"  says  Brandolin, 


88  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

as  he  rises  with  regret  from  his  seat  under  the  ever- 
green helmet. 

Xenia  Sabaroff  is  pleased  at  the  expression.  She 
is  too  handsome  for  men  often  to  speak  to  her  ration- 
ally :  they  usually  plunge  headlong  into  attempts  at 
homage  and  flattery,  of  which  she  is  nauseated. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AN  EXTBEMELY   INTERESTING  WOMAN. 

"How  do  you  like  Lord  Brandolin?"  says  Lady 
Usk,  when  she  can  say  so  unobserved. 

"  I  like  him  very  much,"  replies  Madame  Sabaroff. 
"He  is  what  one  would  expect  him  to  be  from  his 
books ;  and  that  is  so  agreeable, — and  so  rare." 

Dorothy  Usk  is  not  pleased.  She  does  not  want 
her  Russian  phoenix  to  admire  Brandolin.  She  has 
arranged  an  alliance  in  her  own  mind  between  the 
Princess  Sabaroff  and  her  own  cousin  Alan,  Lord 
Gervase,  whom  she  is  daily  expecting  at  Surrenden. 
Gervase  is  a  man  of  some  note  in  diplomacy  and 
society ;  she  is  proud  of  him,  she  is  attached  to  him, 
she  desires  to  see  him  ultimately  fill  all  offices  of  state 
that  the  ambition  of  an  Englishman  can  aspire  to ; 
and  Xenia  Sabaroff  is  so  enormously  rich,  as  well  as 
so  unusually  handsome.  It  would  be  a  perfectly  ideal 
union ;  and,  desiring  it  infinitely,  the  mistress  of  Sur« 
renden,  with  that  tact  which  distinguishes  her,  has 
never  named  Lord  Gervase  to  the  Princess  Sabaroff 
nor  the  Princess  Sabaroff  to  Lord  Gervase.  He  is  to 
be  at  Surrenden  in  a  week's  time.  Now  she  vaguely 


90  A  IIOUSE-PARTY. 

wishes  that  Brandolin  had  not  these  eight  days'  start 
of  him.  But  then  Brandolin,  she  knows,  will  only 
flirt ;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  Russian  lady  allow  him  to  do 
so  :  he  is  an  unconscionable  flirt,  and  never  means  any- 
thing by  his  tenderest  speeches.  Brand  in,  she 
knows,  is  not  a  person  who  will  ever  marry;  he 
has  lost  scores  of  the  most  admirable  opportunities, 
and  rejected  the  fairest  and  best-filled  hands  that  have 
been  offered  to  him.  To  the  orderly  mind  of  Lady 
Usk,  he  represents  an  Ishmael  forever  wandering  in 
wild  woods,  outside  the  pale  of  general  civilization. 
She  can  never  see  why  people  make  such  a  fuss  with 
him.  She  does  not  say  so,  because  it  is  the  fashion  to 
make  the  fuss,  and  she  never  goes  against  a  fashion. 
A  very  moral  woman  herself,  she  is  only  as  charitable 
and  elastic  as  she  is  to  naughty  people  because  such 
charity  and  elasticity  is  the  mark  of  good  society  in 
the  present  day.  Without  it,  she  would  be  neither 
popular  nor  well  bred  ;  and  she  would  sooner  die  than 
fail  in  being  either. 

"  Why  don't  you  ever  marry,  Lord  Brandolin  ?  " 
asks  Dorothy  Usk,  "  Why  have  you  never  married  ?  " 

"  Because  he's  much  too  sensible,"  growls  her  hus- 
band, but  adds,  with  infinite  compassion,  "He'll  have 
to,  some  day,  or  the  name  will  die  out." 

"  Yes,  I  shall  have  to,  some  day,  to  use  your  very 
grammatical  expression,"  assents  Brandolin.  "  I  don't 
wish  the  name  to  die  out,  and  there's  nobody  to  come 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  91 

after  me  except  the  Southesk-Vanes,  who  detest  me  as 
I  detest  them." 

"  Well,  then,  why  not  make  some  marriage  at 
once?"  says  Lady  Usk.  "I  know  so  many  charm- 
ing " 

Brandolin  arrests  the  sentence  with  a  deprecatory 
gesture,  "  Dear  Lady  Usk,  please !  I  like  you  so 
much,  I  wouldn't  for  worlds  have  you  mixed  up  in 
anything  which  would  probably,  or  at  least  very  pos- 
sibly, make  me  so  much  dislike  you  in  the  years  to 
come." 

Usk  gives  a  laugh  of  much  enjoyment. 

His  wife  is  slightly  annoyed.  She  does  not  like  this 
sort  of  jesting. 

"You  said  a  moment  ago  that  you  must  marry  I" 
she  observes,  with  some  impatience. 

"  Oh,  there  is  no  positive  '  must '  about  it,"  says 
Brandolin,  dubiously.  "  The  name  doesn't  matter 
greatly  after  all ;  it  is  only  that  I  don't  like  the  place 
to  go  to  the  Southesk-Vanes;  they  are  my  cousins, 
heaven  knows  how  many  times  removed  ;  they  have 
most  horrible  politics,  and  they  are  such  dreadfully 
prosaic  people  that  I  am  sure  they  will  destroy  my 
gardens,  poison  my  Indian  beasts,  strangle  my  African 
birds,  turn  my  old  servants  adrift,  and  make  the  coun- 
try round  hideous  with  high  farming." 

"  Marry,  then,  and  put  an  end  to  anything  so  dread- 
ful," says  Dorothy  Usk. 


92  -A-  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Brandolin  gets  up  and  walks  about  the  room.  It  is 
a  dilemma  which  has  often  been  present  to  his  mind  in 
various  epochs  of  his  existence. 

"  You  see,  my  dear  people,"  he  says,  with  affection- 
ate confidence,  "  the  real  truth  of  the  matter  is  this. 
A  good  woman  is  an  admirable  creation  of  Providence, 
for  certain  uses  in  her  generation  ;  but  she  is  tiresome. 
A  naughty  woman  is  delightful ;  but  then  she  is,  if 
you  marry  her,  compromising.  Which  am  I  to  take 
of  the  two !  I  should  be  bored  to  death  by  what 
Renan  calls  la  femmepure  and  against  lafemme  taree 
as  a  wife  1  have  a  prejudice.  The  woman  who  would 
amuse  me  I  would  not  marry  if  1  could,  and  as,  if  I 
were  bored,  I  should  leave  my  wife  entirely,  and  go 
to  the  Equator  or  the  Pole,  it  would  not  be  honest  in 
me  to  sacrifice  a  virgin  to  the  mere  demands  of  my 
family  pride." 

Lady  Usk  feels  shocked,  but  she  does  not  like  to 
show  it,  because  it  is  so  old-fashioned  and  prudish  and 
arriere  nowadays  to  be  shocked  at  anything. 

"  I  have  thought  about  it  very  often,  I  assure  you," 
continues  Brandolin,  "  and  sometimes  I  have  really 
thought  that  I  would  marry  a  high-caste  Hindoo 
woman.  They  are  very  beautiful,  and  their  forms  far 
more  exquisite  than  any  European's,  wholly  uncramped 
as  they  are  by  any  stays,  and  accustomed  to  spend  so 
many  hours  on  all  kinds  of  arts  for  the  embellishment 
of  the  skin." 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  93 

"  I  don't  think,  you  know,"  Lady  Usk  interposes, 
hastily,  to  repress  more  reminiscences,  "  that  you  need 
be  afraid  of  the  young  girls  of  our  time  being  innocent ; 
they  are  eveillees  enough,  heaven  knows,  and  experi- 
enced enough  in  all  conscience." 

"  Oh,  but  that  is  odious,"  says  Brandolin,  with  dis- 
gust. "  The  girls  of  the  day  are  horrible  ;  nothing  is 
unknown  to  them ;  they  smoke,  they  gamble,  they  flirt 
without  decency  or  grace,  their  one  idea  is  to  marry 
for  sake  of  a  position  which  will  let  them  go  as  wild 
as  they  choose,  and  for  the  sake  of  heaps  of  money 
which  will  sustain  their  unconscionable  extravagance. 
Lord  deliver  me  from  any  of  them  !  I  would  sooner 
see  St.  Hubert's  Lea  cut  up  into  allotment-grounds 
than  save  it  from  the  Southesk-Vanes  by  marrying  a 
debutante  with  her  mind  fixed  on  establishing  herself, 
and  her  youthful  memories  already  full  of  dead-and- 
gone  flirtations.  No!  let  me  wait  for  Dodo,  if  you 
will  give  me  permission  to  educate  her,'1 

"  Dodo  will  never  be  educated  out  of  flirting ;  she 
is  born  for  it,"  says  her  father,  "  and  she  will  be  a 
handful  when  she  gets  into  society.  I  am  afraid  you 
would  return  her  to  us  and  sigh  for  your  high-caste 
Hindoo." 

"  Pray,  how  would  you  educate  her  ?  what  is  missing 
in  her  present  education  ?  "  asks  Lady  TJsk,  somewhat 
piqued  at  what  he  implies. 

"I  would  let  her  see  a  great  deal  more  of  her 


94  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

mother  than  she  is  allowed  to  do,"  says  Brandolin : 
«'  where  could  she  take  a  better  model  ?  "  he  adds,  with 
a  bow  of  much  grace. 

Her  mother  is  not  sure  whether  she  ought  to  be 
flattered  or  offended.  Brandolin  has  a  way  of  min- 
gling graceful  compliments  and  implied  censure  with  so 
much  skill  and  intricacy  that  to  disentangle  them  is 
difficult  for  those  whom  he  would  at  once  flatter  and 
rebuff.  "  One  never  quite  knows  what  he  means,"  she 
thinks,  irritably.  "  I  do  believe  he  intends  to  imply 
that  I  neglect  my  children !  " 

Brandolin  seems  to  her  an  unpleasant  man,  eccen- 
tric, discourteous,  and  immoral.  She  cannot  imagine 
what  George  or  the  world  sees  to  admire  and  like  so 
much  in  him. 

"  Lord  Brandolin  actually  declares  that  black  wom- 
en have  much  better  figures  than  we  have,"  she  says, 
an  hour  later,  to  Leila  Faversham. 

"  Black  women ! "  exclaims  that  lady,  in  unspeakable 
horror. 

"  Well,  Hindoos :  it  is  the  same  thing,"  says  Lady 
Usk  with  that  ignorance  of  her  Indian  fellow-subjects 
which  is  characteristic  of  English  society,  from  the 
highest  strata  to  the  lowest. 

"  Oh,  he  is  always  so  odd,  you  know,"  says  Mrs. 
Faversham,  as  of  a  person  whom  it  is  hopeless  even  to 
discuss.  Brandoliu  is  indeed  so  odd  that  he  has  never 
perceived  her  own  attractions.  What  can  seem  odder 
to  a  pretty  woman  than  that  ? 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  95 

Leila  Faversham  tells  Lady  Dawlish  ten  minutes 
later  that  Brandolin  has  confessed  that  he  only  likes 
black  women.  "  Isn't  it  horrid  ?  He  actually  has 
numbers  of  them  down  in  Warwickshire,  just  as  he 
keeps  the  Indian  animals  and  the  African  birds." 

"How  very  shocking  !  "  says  Lady  Dawlish.  "But 
I  dare  say  it  is  very  economical:  they  only  eat  a 
spoonful  of  rice  and  wear  a  yard  of  calico,  you  know, 
and,  as  he  is  poor,  that  must  suit  him." 

Lady  Dawlish  tells  this  fact  to  Nina  Curzon,  adding 
various  embellishments  of  her  fancy ;  Mrs.  Curzon 
thinks  the  notion  new  and  amusing ;  she  writes  of  it 
that  morning  to  a  journal  of  society  which  she  occa- 
sionally honors  with  news  of  her  world,  not  from 
want  of  the  editor's  fee,  but  from  the  amusement  it 
affords  her  to  destroy  the  characters  of  her  acquaint- 
ances. The  journal  will  immediately,  she  knows, 
produce  a  mysterious  but  sensational  paragraph  re- 
garding the  black  women  in  Warwickshire,  or  some 
article  headed  "  An  Hereditary  Legislature  at  Home." 
Brandolin  is  a  person  whom  it  is  perfectly  safe  to 
libel :  he  is  very  indolent,  very  contemptuous,  and  he 
never  by  any  chance  reads  a  newspaper. 

"  An  extremely  interesting  woman,"  muses  Brando- 
lin that  evening,  as  he  dresses  for  dinner.  "Inter- 
esting, and  moreover  with  something  original,  some- 
thing mysterious  and  suggestive,  in  her.  Despite 

Lady  Usk,  there  is  a  difference  still  in  different  na- 
7 


96  -4  HOUSE-PARTY. 

tionalities.  I  could  still  swear  to  an  Englishwoman 
anywhere,  if  I  only  saw  the  back  of  her  head  and  her 
shoulders.  No  Englishwoman  could  have  the  deli- 
cious languor  of  Madame  Sabaroff's  movements." 

She  interests  him ;  he  decides  to  stay  on  at  Surrenden. 

When  he  sees  her  at  dinner  he  is  still  more  favor- 
ably impressed. 

Her  figure  is  superb,  and  her  sleeveless  gown  shows 
the  beauty  of  her  bust  and  arms ;  she  has  a  flat  band 
of  diamonds  worn  between  the  elbow  and  the  shoulder 
of  the  right  arm.  The  effect  is  singular,  but  good. 

"  It  is  to  show  that  she  has  the  muscle  above  the 
elbow,"  says  old  Sir  Adolphus,  who  is  learned  in 
sculpture  and  anatomy.  "  You  know,  not  one  woman 
in  ten  thousand  has  it ;  and  for  want  of  it  their  arms 
fall  in  above  the  elbow.  I  have  heard  sculptors  say 
so  a  hundred  times.  She  has  it,  and  so  she  wears  that 
flat  bracelet  to  emphasize  the  fact. 

Brandolin  feels  annoyed.  There  is  no  reason  in  life 
why  he  should  object  to  Madame  Sabaroff  having  any 
number  of  affectations  and  vanities,  or  why  he  should 
mind  hearing  this  handsome  old  viveur  discuss  them ; 
but  he  is  annoyed  by  both  facts. 

There  is  not  a  plain  woman  among  the  guests  of 
Surrenden :  some  are  even  far  beyond  the  average  of 
good  looks,  and  all  have  that  chic  which  lends  in 
itself  a  kind  of  beauty  to  the  woman  of  the  world. 
But  the  handsomest  of  them  all,  Nina  Curzon  herself, 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  97 

pales  beside  the  beautiful  pallor  of  the  Russian  lady, 
contrasted  as  it  is  with  the  splendor  of  her  jewels,  the 
red  rose  of  her  lips,  and  the  darkness  of  her  eyelashes 
and  eyes. 

At  dinner,  Xenia  Sabaroff  does  not  speak  much: 
she  has  a  dreamy  look,  almost  a  fatigued  one. 

Brandolin  is  opposite  to  her :  as  there  are  no  orna- 
ments or  flowers  on  the  table  higher  than  eight  inches, 
he  can  contemplate  her  at  his  leisure  across  the  field 
of  shed  rose-leaves  which  is  between  them.  Finding 
that  she  is  so  silent,  he  talks  in  his  best  fashion,  in  his 
most  reckless,  antithetical,  picturesque  manner :  he 
perceives  he  gains  her  attention,  though  he  never 
directly  addresses  her. 

He  also  makes  Mr.  Wootton  furious.  Mr.  Wootton 
has  half  a  dozen  good  stories  untold.  His  method  of 
getting  good  stories  is  ingenious  :  he  procures  obscure 
but  clever  memoirs,  French  and  English,  which  are 
wholly  forgotten,  alters  their  most  piquant  anecdotes  a 
little,  and  fits  them  on  to  living  and  famous  person- 
ages; the  result  is  admirable,  and  has  earned  him 
his  great  reputation  as  a  raconteur  of  contemporary 
scandal.  He  has  six  delicious  things  ready  now,  and 
he  cannot  find  a  moment  in  which  he  can  lead  up  to 
and  place  any  one  of  them. 

"  Brandolin  is  so  amusing  when  he  likes,"  says  Lady 
Arthur  Audley,  incautiously,  to  this  suppressed  and 
sullen  victim. 
7 


98  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  A  monologist !  a  monologist ! "  replies  Mr.  Woot- 
ton,  with  a  deprecatory  accent. 

Lady  Arthur  is  silenced,  for  she  has  not  the  slightest 
idea  what  a  monologist  is.  She  fancies  it  means  some 
kind  of  a  sect  like  the  Mormons,  and  Brandolin  is  so 
odd  that  he  may  possibly  belong  to  a  sect,  or  may  have 
founded  one,  like  Laurence  Oliphant.  She  remembers 
the  black  women  that  they  talked  of,  and  does  not  like 
to  ask,  being  a  sensitive  person,  very  delicate-minded, 
and  perfectly  proper,  except  her  one  little  affair  with 
Sir  Hugo,  which  everybody  says  is  most  creditable 
to  her,  Arthur  Audley  being  the  scamp  that 
he  is. 

Dinner  over,  Brandolin  finds  a  pleasant  seat  on  a 
low  chair  behind  the  bigger  chair  on  which  Madame 
Sabaroff  is  reclining ;  other  men  devoted  to  other 
women  look  longingly  at  her,  some  approach ;  Bran- 
dolin comprehends  why  she  is  not  beloved  in  her 
generation  by  her  own  sex. 

After  a  time  she  is  induced  to  sing ;  she  has  a  very 
sweet  voice,  of  great  power,  with  much  pathos  in  it ; 
she  sings  volkslieder  of  her  own  country,  strange 
yearning  wistful  songs,  full  of  the  vague  mystical 
melancholy  of  the  Russian  peasant.  She  ceases  ab- 
ruptly, and  walks  back  to  her  seat ;  her  diamonds 
gleam  in  the  light  like  so  many  eyes  of  fire.  Brandolin 
has  listened  in  silence,  conscious  of  a  troubled  pleasure 
within  himself,  which  is  invariably  the  herald  of  one  of 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  99 

those  attachments  which  have  so  often  at  once  embel- 
lished and  disturbed  his  existence. 

Like  all  romantic  people,  his  heart  is  much  younger 
than  his  years.  It  has  not  been  scarred  by  any  one  of 
those  tragic  passions  which,  like  fire  on  a  hill-side, 
wither  up  all  green  things,  so  that  not  a  blade  of  grass 
will  grow  where  it  has  passed.  He  has  usually  found 
love  only  the  most  agreeable  of  pastimes.  He  has 
always  wondered  why  anybody  allowed  it  to  tear  their 
life  to  tatters,  as  a  bad  actor  tears  a  fine  piece  of  blank 
verse.  An  uncle  of  his  possessed  an  Aphrodite  in 
Paphian  marble  which  had  been  dug  up  in  a  vineyard 
at  Luna,  and  a  work  of  great  beauty  of  the  second 
period  of  Greek  art.  A  lover  of  pleasure,  but  withal 
a  philosopher,  his  uncle  treasured  and  adored  this 
statue,  and  whenever  he  felt  that  any  living  woman 
was  getting  more  power  over  him  than  he  liked,  he 
compared  her  in  his  mind  with  the  Luna  Venus,  and 
found  that  the  human  creature's  defects  outbalanced 
her  charms,  and  thus  reduced  the  potency  of  the  latter 
to  more  reasonable  dimensions. 

Instead  of  his  uncle's  Luna  goddess,  Brandolin  keeps 
in  some  remote  and  sealed-up  nook  of  his  mind  a  cer- 
tain ideal ;  now  and  then  he  remembers  it,  takes  it  out 
and  looks  at  it,  and  it  has  usually  served  with  him  at 
such  moments  the  purpose  which  the  Luna  marble 
served  with  his  uncle. 

As  he  saunters  towards  the  smoking-room  with  his 


100  A  1IOUSE-PARTY. 

hands  in  the  pockets  of  a  loose  velvet  jacket,  he  sum- 
mons this  useful  resident  of  his  brain,  intending  to 
banish  with  it  the  remembrance,  the  too  enervating 
remembrance,  of  Xenia  Sabaroff.  But,  to  his  surprise, 
they  seem  very  like  one  another,  and  their  features 
blend  confusedly  into  one. 

*'  And  I  know  nothing  at  all  about  this  lady,  except 
that  she  has  a  voice  like  Albani's,  big  jewels,  and  a 
Russian  name !  "  he  thinks,  with  some  derision  of 
himself.  The  smokers  do  not  find  him  amusing, 
while  his  companions  seem  to  him  insufferably  tire- 
some, lie  hears  the  echo  of  Madame  Sabaroff's 
grave,  low,  melodious  voice,  and  is  not  in  temper  for 
the  somewhat  scabreux  jests  of  the  smoking-room. 
He  thinks  that  it  is  all  very  well  for  boys  to  like  that 
sort  of  salacious  talk,  but  it  seems  to  him  intolerably 
absurd  that  men  of  his  own  age,  and  older,  should  find 
any  kind  of  savor  in  it. 

They  tease  him  about  the  black  women,  moreover, 
and  for  once  he  is  not  easy  enough  to  be  good-tem- 
pered and  indifferent.  He  answers  contemptuously 
and  irritably,  and  of  course  all  his  friends  suppose, 
which  they  had  not  supposed  before,  that  there  is, 
after  all,  some  truth  in  Mrs.  Curzon's  anecdote. 

"What  stupid  stories  that  old  blagueur  Wootton 
has  told  in  the  smoking-room,  and  what  beastly  ones 
Fred  Ormond  has  related !  and  all  as  if  they  were 
something  new,  too!  as  if  the  one  weren't  taken  out 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  101 

of  the  manuscripts  at  Bute  House,  and  the  other  out 
of  last  week's  '  Figaro' !  If  men  won't  be  original, 
or  can't  be,  why  don't  they  hold  their  tongues  ?  " 

"  What  fools  we  are  to  sit  shut  up  with  gas-lights 
and  tobacco  on  such  a  night  as  this ! — a  night  for 
Lorenzo  and  Jessica,  for  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  he 
thinks,  as  he  stands  awhile  at  the  open  window  of  his 
own  bedroom. 

It  is  three  o'clock :  there  is  a  faint  suggestive  light 
which  means  the  dawn,  young  birds  are  twittering, 
there  is  a  delicious  scent  of  green  leaves,  of  full-blown 
roses,  of  dewy  mosses ;  the  air  is  damp  and  warm,  he 
can  hear  the  feet  of  blackbirds  scraping  and  turning 
over  the  mould  and  the  grass ;  it  is  dark,  yet  he  can 
distinguish  the  masses  of  the  great  woods  beyond  the 
gardens,  the  outlines  of  the  trees  near  his  casement, 
the  shape  of  the  clouds  as  they  move  slowly  south- 
ward. He  wonders  in  what  part  of  the  old  house, 
whose  fantastic  roofs  and  turrets  and  gargoyles  and 
ivy-colored  buttresses  are  hidden  in  the  dusk  of  the 
summer  night,  they  have  given  the  Princess  Sabaroff 
her  chamber.  He  remains  some  time  at  the  open 
window,  and  goes  to  his  bed  as  the  dawn  grows  rosy. 

"  Lord  Brandolin  is  in  a  very  bad  temper,"  says 
Mr.  Wootton,  when  the  smoking-room  door  has  closed 
on  the  object  of  his  detestation ;  then  he  pauses,  and 
adds,  significantly,  "  The  Brandolins,  you  know,  were 
always  a  little — just  a  little — clever  family,  very 


102  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

clever,  but  we  all  know  to  what  great  wits  are  sadly 
often  allied.  And  this  man  has  never  done  anything, 
with  all  his  talent  and  opportunities  ;  never  done 
anything  at  all !  " 

"  He  has  written  first-rate  books,"  says  TJsk,  angrily, 
always  ready  to  defend  a  friend  in  absence. 

"Oh,  books!"  says  Mr.  Wootton,  with  bland  but 
unutterable  disdain.  Mr.  Wootton  is  a  critic  of  books, 
and  therefore  naturally  despises  them. 

"  What  would  you  have  him  do  ? "  growls  TJsk, 
pugnaciously. 

Mr.  Wootton  stretches  his  legs  out,  and  gazes  with 
abstracted  air  at  the  ceiling.  "  Public  life,"  he  mur- 
murs. "  Public  life  is  the  only  possible  career  for  an 
Englishman  of  position.  But  it  demands  sacrifices ; 
it  demands  sacrifices." 

"  You  mean  that  one  has  to  marry  ?  "  says  the  young 
Duke  of  Queenstown,  timidly. 

Mr.  Wootton  smiles  on  him  loftily.  "  Marry  ?  yes, 
undoubtedly  ;  and  avoid  scandal  afterwards  ;  avoid, 
beyond  all,  those  connections  which  lend  such  a  charm 
to  existence,  but  are  so  apt  to  get  into  the  news- 
papers." 

There  is  a  general  laugh. 

Mr.  Wootton  has  not  intended  to  make  them  laugh 
and  he  resumes,  with  stateliness,  as  though  they  had 
not  interrupted  him.  "  The  country  expects  those 
sacrifices :  no  man  succeeds  in  public  life  in  England 
who  does  not  make  them." 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  103 

"Melbourne,  Palmerston,  Sidney  Herbert?"  mur- 
murs one  rebellious  hearer. 

Mr.  Wootton  waves  him  aside  as  he  would  do  an 
importunate  fly.  "  Not  to  touch  on  living  persons,  I 
would  select  Lord  Althorp  as  the  model  of  the  public 
leader  most  suited  to  this  country.  It  would  not  suit 
Lord  Brandolin  to  lead  the  blameless  life  of  Lord 
Althorp.  It  would  not  suit  him  even  to  pretend  to 
lead  it.  I  doubt  if  he  could  even  look  the  part,  if  he 
tried.  The  English  are  a  peculiar  people ;  they  always 
mix  public  and  private  life  together.  Lord  Beacons- 
field  remarked  to  me  once " 

And  Mr.  Wootton  tells  a  story  of  Disraeli,  a  very 
good  story,  only  he  has  taken  it  out  of  the  journals 
of  the  President  des  Brosses  and  fathered  it  on  to 
Disraeli.  But  M.  le  President  des  Brosses  is  an  author 
seldom  read  now,  and  nobody  knows  ;  if  they  did,  no- 
body would  care. 

"  Public  opinion,"  he  resumes,  "  is  irresistible  in 
England ;  and  if  it  once  turn  against  a  man,  were  he 
Messiah  himself,  he  could  do  nothing.  It  is  not  an  in- 
telligent public  opinion  :  it  confuses  public  and  private 
qualifications.  A  man  may  be  a  great  statesman  and 
yet  dislike  his  wife  and  like  somebody  else's.  A  man 
may  be  a  great  hero  and  yet  may  have  an  unseemly 
passion  or  an  unpaid  tailor.  But  the  British  public 
does  not  understand  this.  It  invariably  overlooks  the 
man's  greatness,  and  only  sees  the  lady  or  the  tailor 


104  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

who  compromises  him.  It  thinks — unhappily  or  hap- 
pily, as  you  please  to  consider — that  genius  should 
keep  the  whole  ten  commandments.  Now,  genius  is 
Conspicuous  for  breaking  them." 

Mr.  Wootton  here  knocks  a  little  ash  off  his  cigar, 
and  smiles  like  a  man  who  has  said  something 
neatly. 

"  It  is  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  you  compliment 
genius,"  murmurs  Lawrence  Hamilton. 

"In  Italy,"  pursues  Mr.  Wootton,  "not  very  long 
ago  a  minister  was  accused  of  buying  a  piano  out  of 
the  public  funds  for  his  mistress.  Neither  the  piano 
nor  the  mistress  hurt  the  gentleman  in  public  esti- 
mation in  that  soft  and  accommodating  clime.  But 
that  piano,  though  he  might  have  paid  for  it  with  his 
own  money,  would  have  ruined  an  English  politician. 
Though  it  had  been  the  very  smallest  cottage  piano 
conceivable,  it  would  have  buried  him  forever  under 
it  if  it  had  got  talked  about ;  he  would  never  have  ex- 
plained it  away,  or  made  it  even  contingently  endur- 
able to  the  nation.  You  may,  if  you  are  a  public  man 
in  England,  commit  every  conceivable  blunder,  add 
millions  to  the  national  debt,  eat  your  own  words 
every  evening  in  debate,  and  plunge  the  country  into 
an  abyss  of  unmeasured  and  unmeasurable  revolution, 
and  they  will  still  have  confidence  in  you  if  you  read 
the  lessons  in  church  and  walk  home  with  your  wife  ; 
but  if  it  is  ever  rumored  that  you  admire  your  neigh- 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  105 

bor's  wife,  down  you  go  forever.  And  yet,"  continues 
Mr.  Wootton,  pensively,  "people  do  admire  their 
neighbor's  wife  in  England,  and  it  seems  a  venial 
offence  when  one  compares  it  with  the  desertion  of 
Gordon,  or  the  encouragement  of  a  hydra-headed 
greed  for  the  rich  man's  goods." 

"With  which  Mr.  "Wootton  yawns,  rises,  and  also 
declares  his  intention  to  go  to  bed. 

The  young  duke  follows  him  and  walks  by  his  side 
down  the  corridor.  He  is  not  at  all  like  Disraeli's 
young  duke  :  he  is  awkward,  shy,  and  dull,  he  is  neither 
amiable  nor  distinguished,  but  he  has  a  painstaking 
wish  in  him  to  do  well  by  his  country,  which  is  almost 
noble  in  a  person  who  has  been  toadied,  indulged,  and 
tempted  in  all  ways  and  on  all  sides  ever  since  his  cradle 
days.  It  is  the  disinterested  patriotism  which  has  been 
so  largely  the  excellence  and  honor  of  the  English 
nobility,  and  which  is  only  possible  in  men  of  position 
so  high  that  they  are  raised  by  it  from  birth  above  all 
vulgar  covetousness  or  pecuniary  needs. 

"  Do  you  really  think  ?  "  says  the  duke,  timidly,  for 
he  is  very  afraid  of  Henry  "Wootton, — "  do  you  really 
think  that  to  have  any  influence  on  English  public  life 
it  is  necessary — necessary — to  keep  so  very  straight,  as 
regards  women,  I  mean,  you  know?" 

"  It  is  most  necessary  to  appear  to  keep  very 
straight,"  replies  Mr.  Wootton.  "  The  two  things 
are  obviously  different  to  the  meanest  capacity." 


106  A  UOUSE-PA&TY. 

The  young  man  sighs. 

"  And  to  have  that — that — appearance,  one  must  be 
married  ?  " 

"  Indisputably.  Marriage  is  as  necessary  to  respect- 
ability in  any  great  position  as  a  brougham  to  a  doctor, 
or  a  butler  to  a  bishop,"  replies  the  elder,  smiling  com- 
passionately at  the  wick  of  his  candle.  He  does  not 
care  a  straw  about  the  duke  :  he  has  no  daughters  to 
marry,  and  Mr.  Wootton's  social  eminence  is  far  beyond 
the  power  of  dukes  or  princes  to  make  or  mend. 

"But,"  stammers  his  Grace  of  Queenstown,  growing 
red,  yet  burning  with  a  desire  for  instruction,  "but 
don't  you  think  a — a  connection  with — with  any  lady 
of  one's  own  rank  is  quite  safe,  quite  sure  not  to  cause 
scandal?" 

Mr.  Wootton  balances  his  candlestick  carefully  on 
one  finger,  pauses  in  his  walk,  and  looks  hard  at  his 
questioner. 

"  That  would  depend  entirely  upon  the  lady's  tem- 
per," replies  this  wise  monitor  of  youth. 

They  are  words  of  wisdom  so  profound  that  they 
sink  deep  into  the  soul  of  his  pupil,  and  fill  him  with 
a  consternated  sadness  and  perplexity.  The  temper  of 
Lady  Dawlish  is  a  known  quantity,  and  the  quality 
of  it  is  alarming.  Lady  Dawlish  is  not  young,  she  is 
good-looking,  and  she  has  debts.  Lord  Dawlish  has 
indeed  hitherto  let  her  pay  her  debts  in  any  way  she 
chose,  being  occupied  enough  with  paying  such  of  his 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  107 

own  as  he  cannot  by  any  dexterity  avoid ;  but  there  is 
no  knowing  what  he  may  do  any  day  out  of  caprice  or 
ill  nature,  and,  although  he  will  never  obtain  a  divorce, 
he  may  try  for  one,  which  will  equally  effectually  con- 
vulse the  duke's  county  and  the  cathedral  city  which 
is  situated  in  its  centre.  His  own  affair  with  Lady 
Dawlish  is,  he  firmly  believes,  known  to  no  human 
being  save  themselves  and  their  confidential  servants  ; 
he  little  dreams  that  it  has  been  the  gossip  of  all  Lon- 
don until  London  grew  tired  of  it ;  he  is  indeed  aware 
that  everybody  invited  them  in  the  kindest  manner 
together,  but  he  attributed  this  coincidence  to  her  tact 
in  the  management  of  her  set  and  choice  of  her  own 
engagements. 

The  human  mind  is  like  the  ostrich :  its  own  pro- 
jects serve  to  it  the  purpose  which  sand  plays  to  the 
ostrich  :  comfortably  buried  in  them,  it  defies  the 
scrutiny  of  mankind ;  wrapped  in  its  own  absorbing 
passions,  it  leaves  its  hansom  before  a  lady's  hall  door, 
or  leaves  its  coroneted  handkerchief  on  a  bachelor's 
couch,  and  never  dreams  that  the  world  is  looking  on 
round  the  corner  or  through  the  keyhole.  Human 
nature  the  moment  it  is  interested  becomes  blind. 
Therefore  the  duke  has  put  his  question  in  good  faith. 

He  would  abhor  any  kind  of  scandal.  He  is  de- 
voted to  his  mother,  who  is  a  pious  and  very  proper 
person  ;  he  has  a  conscientious  sense  of  his  own  vast 
duties  and  responsibilities ;  he  would  feel  most  uncom- 


108  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

fortable  if  he  thought  people  were  talking  grossly  of 
him  in  his  own  county ;  and  he  has  a  horror  of  Lord 
Dawlish,  noisy,  insolent,  coarse,  a  gambler  and  a  rake. 

Arrived  at  his  bedroom  door,  Mr.  Wootten  is 
touched  vaguely  with  a  kind  feeling  towards  his  hum- 
ble interrogator,  or  with  some  other  sentiment  less 
kindly,  it  may  be.  He  pauses,  looks  straight  before 
him  at  the  wick  of  his  candle,  and  speaks  with  that 
oracular  air  so  becoming  to  him  which  many  ungrate- 
ful people  are  known  to  loathe. 

"  That  kind  of  connections  are  invariably  danger- 
ous ;  invariably,"  he  remarks.  "  They  have  their 
uses,  I  admit,  they  have  their  uses :  they  mould  a 
man's  manners  when  he  is  young,  they  enable  him  to 
acquire  great  insight  into  female  character,  they  keep 
him  out  of  the  lower  sorts  of  entanglements,  and  they 
are  useful  in  restraining  him  from  premature  marriage. 
But  they  are  perilous  if  allowed  to  last  too  long.  If 
permitted  to  claim  privileges,  rights,  usurpations,  they 
are  apt  to  become  irksome  and  compromising,  espe- 
cially if  the  lady  be  no  longer  young.  When  a  woman 
is  no  longer  young  there  is  a  desperate  acharnement  in 
her  tenacity  about  a  last  passion  which  is  like  that  of 
the  mariner  clinging  to  a  spar  in  the  midst  of  a  gusty 
sea.  It  is  not  easy  for  the  spar  to  disengage  itself. 
On  the  whole,  therefore,  women  of  rank  are  perhaps 
best  avoided  in  this  sense.  Passions  are  safest  which 
can  be  terminated  by  the  check-book.  The  check- 


AN  INTERESTING  WOMAN.  109 

book  is  not  always  indeed  refused  by  great  ladies, — 
when  they  are  in  debt, — but  a  check-book  is  an  un- 
pleasant witness  in  the  law  courts.  However,  as  I 
said  before,  all  depends  on  the  lady's  temper:  no 
woman  who  has  a  bad  temper  is  ever  truly  discreet. 
Good-night  to  your  Grace."  And  Mr.  "Wootton,  with 
his  candle,  disappears  within  his  door-way. 

He  smiles  a  little  blandly  as  his  man  undresses  him. 
Five  years  before,  Lady  Dawlish  offended  him  at  a 
house-party  at  Sandringham,  taking  a  fiendish  pleasure 
in  capping  all  his  best  stories  and  tracing  the  sources 
of  all  his  epigrams.  In  that  inaccessible  but  indelible 
note-book,  his  memory,  he  has  written  her  name  down 
as  that  of  one  to  whom  he  has  a  debt  to  pay.  "Je 
lui  ai  donne  dufil  &  retordre"  he  thinks,  as  he  drops 
into  his  first  doze. 


110  A  BOUSE-PAKTX. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A  NEW  ABUTTAL  WHO  PKOVES   AN   OLD   ACQUAINTANCE. 

"  ALAN  is  really  coming  to-day !  "  says  Dorothy 
Usk  to  her  lord,  with  pleasure,  a  few  days  later,  look- 
ing  up  from  a  telegram. 

"  How  you  excite  yourself ! "  says  Usk,  with  rude 
disdain.  "  What  can  you  see  to  care  about  ?  He  is  a 
pretentious  humbug,  if  ever  there  was  one ! " 

"  George ! "  She  regards  him  with  horror  and 
amaze.  Is  he  wholly  out  of  his  mind  ?  Her  cousin 
is  Lady  Usk's  ideal  of  what  an  English  gentleman 
should  be.  He  does  not  keep  black  women  down  in 
Warwickshire. 

"A  pretentious  humbug,"  repeats  Usk.  He  likes 
to  ticket  his  relations  and  connections  with  well- 
chosen  descriptions.  "  All  good  looks  and  soft  sawder. 
Women  like  that  sort  of  thing " 

"  Of  course  we  like  good  manners,  though  they  are  not 
your  weakness,"  interrupts  his  wife,  with  acerbity. 
"Alan  has  the  manners  of  a  man  who  respects 


A  NEW  AEEIVAL  111 

women :  that  may  seem  very  tame  to  you  and  your 
friend  Brandolin,  but  in  these  days  it  has  at  least  the 
charm  of  novelty." 

"  Respects  women  !  "  Usk  is  unable  to  restrain  his 
hilarity.  "  My  dear  Dolly,  you're  not  a  chicken  :  you 
can't  mean  that  you  don't  know  that  Gervase " 

"  I  know  that  he  is  well-bred.  You  were  so  once, 
but  it  is  a  very  long  time  ago,"  replies  his  wife,  with 
cutting  sententiousness,  and  with  that  unkind  reply 
she  leaves  him.  As  if  she  did  not  understand  men 
better  than  he,  she  thinks,  contemptuously.  He  may 
understand  dogs  and  horses,  and  deer  and  partridges, 
but  about  human  nature  he  knows  no  more  than  the 
old  man  at  the  lodge  gates. 

"  Surely  she  can't  be  soft  on  Gervase  herself  ?  "  her 
husband  reflects,  with  a  sensation  of  amusement ;  "  it 
would  be  too  funny,  after  running  so  straight  all  these 
years,  and  just  as  her  daughters  are  growing  up ;  but 
they  often  are  like  that." 

He  is  not  sure  whether  the  idea  diverts  or  irritates 
him,  but  he  knows  that  he  has  always  detested  Ger- 
vase, such  a  coxcomb  and  such  a  humbug  as  the  fellow 
is! 

"Respect  women,  good  Lord!"  ejaculates  Usk  in 
his  solitude. 

"  To  be  sure,"  adds  the  honest  gentleman  in  his  own 
mind,  "  there  are  very  few  of  'em  who  would  thank 
you  to  respect  'em  nowadays." 

6 


112  A  HOUSE-PAHTY. 

"  Gervase  will  be  here  by  dinner,"  he  says  in  the 
course  of  the  day  to  Princess  Sabaroff. 

"  Indeed,"  she  replies,  with  indifference.  "  Who  is 
he?" 

**  A  friend  of  my  wife's ;  at  least  a  cousin.  I 
thought  you  might  know  him ;  he  was  some  time  in 
Russia." 

"  No," — and  there  is  a  coldness  in  the  negative 
disproportioned  to  so  simple  a  denial, — "I  do  not 
think  so.  I  do  not  remember  such  a  name.  Who  is 
he?" 

"  A  person  who  is  expected  to  be  great  in  foreign 
affairs  some  day  or  other,"  says  Brandolin.  "  He  will 
have  one  qualification  rare  in  an  English  foreign 
minister,— daily  growing  rarer,  thanks  to  the  imbecil- 
ities of  examinations :  he  knows  how  to  bow  and  he 
knows  what  to  say." 

"  A  friend  of  yours  ?  n 

"  Oh,  no ;  an  acquaintance.  He  thinks  very  ill  of 
me." 

"Why?" 

"  Because  I  do  nothing  for  my  country.  He  thinks 
he  does  a  great  deal  when  he  has  fomented  a  quarrel 
or  received  a  decoration." 

"  That  is  not  generous.  The  world  owes  much  to 
diplomatists :  it  will  know  how  much  in  a  few  years, 
when  it  will  be  governed  by  clerks  controlled  by 
telephones." 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  113 

"  That  is  true :  I  stand  corrected.  But  Gervase 
and  I  have  few  sympathies  ;  none,  indeed,  except 
politically,  and  even  there  we  differ, — his  is  the  Tory- 
ism  of  Peel,  mine  is  the  Toryism  of  the  late  Lord 
Derby :  there  are  leagues  between  the  two." 

"  I  know  :  the  one  is  opportunism ;  the  other  Is 
optiinate-ism." 

"Perhaps,"  says  Brandolin,  with  a  smile,  and 
thinks,  meantime,  "  She  knows  something  about  him. 
What  is  it?" 

"  Does  she  know  Gervase,  despite  her  denial  ? "  he 
wonders.  He  has  an  impression  that  she  does.  There 
was  a  look  of  recognition  in  her  eyes  when  she  gave 
that  vague  bland  gesture  in  answer  to  her  host.  All 
trifles  in  her  interest  him,  as  they  always  do  interest  a 
man  in  a  woman  whom  he  admires  and  is  not  sure  that 
he  understands ;  and  Gervase  he  is  aware  has  been  a 
good  deal  in  Russia. 

He  himself  has  known  the  subject  of  their  dis- 
course ever  since  they  were  boys,  and  had  that  sort 
of  intimacy  with  him  which  exists  between  men  who 
live  in  the  same  sets  and  belong  to  the  same  clubs. 
But  to  him  Gervase  seems  a  petit-mattre,  a  poseur,  a 
man  artificial,  conventional,  ambitious  in  small  things, 
and  to  Gervase  he  himself  seems  much  as  he  does  to 
Lady  Usk,  a  perverse  and  lawless  Bohemian,  only 
saved  from  the  outer  darkness  by  the  fact  of  his  aris- 
tocratic birth. 


114  A  HOUSE-PASTY. 

Meanwhile,  in  her  own  room,  Xenia  Sabaroff  is  pur- 
suing her  own  reflections  whilst  her  maid  disrobes  her. 

"It  will  be  better  to  see  him  once  and  for  all,"  she 
muses.  u,  I  cannot  go  on  forever  avoiding  him  in 
every  city  in  Europe.  Very  likely  he  will  not  even 
remember  my  face  or  my  name." 

She  feels  a  strong  temptation  to  invent  some  plaus- 
ible reason  and  break  off  her  visit  to  Surrenden ;  but 
she  is  a  courageous  woman,  and  flight  is  repugnant  to 
her.  More  than  once  of  late  she  has  avoided  a  meet- 
ing which  is  disagreeable  to  her,  by  some  abrupt 
change  of  her  own  plans  or  reversal  of  her  own  en- 
gagements. To  continue  to  do  this  seems  weakness. 
Indeed,  to  do  it  at  all  seems  too  great  a  flattery  to  the 
person  avoided.  What  is  painful  is  best  encountered 
without  procrastination.  It  is  the  old  question  of 
grasping  the  nettle. 

A  haughty  flush  passes  over  her  face  at  her  own 
reflections.  After  all,  to  have  any  emotion  at  all 
about  it,  pleasurable  or  painful,  is  humiliation.  She 
is  a  proud  woman,  as  well  as  a  courageous  one.  There 
are  memories  associated  with  this  coming  guest  which 
are  bitter  and  hateful. 

Women  like  Mrs.  Wentworth  Curzon  carry  such 
memories  lightly,  or  rather  do  not  carry  them  at  all, 
but  bury  them  by  scores,  pell-mell,  one  on  the  top  of 
another,  like  old  letters,  and  forget  all  about  their 
interment ;  but  she  is  different  from  them. 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  115 

It  has  not  been  difficult  for  her  to  avoid  meeting 
Lord  Gervase ;  he  is  one  of  those  persons  whose 
movements  are  known  and  chronicled  ;  but  she  is 
conscious  that  the  time  is  come  when  she  can  no 
longer  escape  doing  so,  except  by  such  an  abrupt  de- 
parture that  it  would  seem  to  herself  too  great  a 
weakness,  and  be  to  him  too  great  a  flattery,  for  such 
a  step  to  enter  for  an  instant  into  the  category  of 
possibilities.  It  is,  she  reflects,  or  it  should  be,  a 
matter  to  her  of  absolute  indifference  to  see  again  a 
person  whom  she  has  not  seen  for  seven  years. 

Yet  she  is  conscious  of  a  sense  of  pain  and  excita- 
tion as  her  woman  puts  on  her  a  maize  satin  tea-gown 
covered  with  point  d'Alen9on  at  five  o'clock  the  next 
day,  and  she  knows  that  when  she  goes  down  to  the 
room  in  a  few  minutes  Gervase,  who  was  to  arrive  by  the 
afternoon  train,  will  in  all  probability  be  present  there. 

Everyone  is  in-doors  that  day,  for  a  fine  summer 
rain  is  falling  without,  and  has  been  falling  since 
noon.  All  the  house-party  are  in  the  library,  and  the 
children  are  there  also ;  the  windows  are  open,  and  the 
sweet  smell  from  the  damp  gardens  and  wet  grass  fills 
the  air. 

Everyone  is  laughing  and  talking;  Usk  is  drink- 
ing  a  glass  of  kiimmel,  and  Brandolin  is  playing  with 
the  dog ;  conversing  with  Nina  Curzon  and  the 
mistress  of  the  house,  and  standing  in  front  of  them, 
is  a  tall  fair  man  irreproachable  in  tenue  and  extreme!  jr 


116  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

distinguished  in  appearance.  He  is  Lord  Gervase. 
His  back  is  towards  the  door,  and  he  does  not  see  or 
hear  her  enter,  but  as  the  Babe  rushes  towards  her, 
toppling  over  a  stool  and  treading  mercilessly  on  the 
trains  of  tea-gowns  in  the  wind  of  his  going,  the  noise 
made  by  the  child  makes  him  turn  his  head,  and  an 
expression  of  recognition  mingled  with  amazement 
passes  over  his  usually  impassive  features. 

"  Is  that  not  Princess  Sabaroff  ? "  he  asks  of  his 
hostess,  with  a  certain  breathless  astonishment  betrayed 
in  his  voice. 

Lady  TTsk  assents.  "  One  of  my  dearest  friends," 
she  adds.  "  I  think  you  don't  know  her  ?  I  will 
present  you  in  a  moment.  She  is  as  clever  as  she  is 
beautiful.  The  children  adore  her.  Look  at  Babe." 

The  Babe  has  dragged  his  princess  to  a  couch  and 
climbed  up  on  it  himself,  kneeling  half  on  her  lap  and 
half  off  it,  with  no  respect  for  the  maize  satin,  whilst 
his  impatient  little  feet  beat  the  devil's  tatoo  among 
the  point  d'Alenjon. 

"  My  dear  Babe,  do  not  be  such  a  monopolist,"  says 
Brandolin,  as  he  approaches  with  a  cup  of  tea  and  a 
wafer  of  caviare  bread-and-butter.  "  Your  shoes  have 
seventeenth-century  buckles,  it  is  true,  yet  still  they 
are  scarcely  bibelots  to  be  wrapped  up  in  a  lady's  dress." 

The  Babe  grins  saucily,  tossing  his  hair  out  of  his 
eyes ;  but,  with  unwonted  obedience,  he  disentangles 
his  feet  with  some  care  out  of  the  lace. 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  H7 

Xenia  Sabaroff  does  not  take  as  much  notice  of  him 
as  usual.  She  is  reserved  and  preoccupied.  Bran- 
dolin,  like  the  child,  fails  in  awakening  her  interest  or 
attention.  She  has  seated  herself  almost  with  her 
back  to  where  Gervase  is  standing,  but  every  now  and 
then  she  looks  half  round,  as  by  an  irresistible  uncon- 
scious impulse  of  curiosity. 

Brandolin  notes  the  gesture,  as  her  actions  have  an 
interest  for  him  which  grows  daily  in  its  fascination. 
"  There  is  Dorothy  TJsk's  Phoenix,"  he  says  to  her,  in 
a  low  tone,  when  the  Babe  has  scampered  off  after 
bon-bons;  he  indicates  Gervase  with  a  glance.  Her 
eyebrows  contract  slightly,  as  in  some  displeasure  or 
constraint. 

"  Lady  Usk  is  very  soon  satisfied,"  she  replies, 
coldly.  "Her  own  amiability  makes  her  see  perfec- 
tion everywhere." 

"  It  is  a  quality  we  cannot  value  too  highly  in  so 
imperfect  a  world.  It  is  better  than  seeing  everything 
en  noir,  surely?"  says  Brandolin.  "If  we  make 
people  what  we  think  them,  as  optimists  say,  it  is  best 
to  be  optimistic." 

"  I  dislike  optimism,"  she  says,  curtly.  "  It  is  ab- 
surd and  untrue.  Our  Dostoievsky  is  a  wiser  novelist 
than  your  Dickens.  One  must  believe  something," 
she  says. 

"  It  is  pretty  for  a  woman  to  think  so,"  says  Bran- 
dolin, "  but  myself  I  have  never  Been  why.  I  may 


(18  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Lope,  I  may  wish,  I  may  regret,  I  may — if  I  am  very 
sanguine — even  expect ;  but  believe — no ! " 

"  Perhaps  I  should  like  to  believe  in  a  woman," 
he  adds,  more  softly,  with  that  inflection  of  his  voice 
which  has  always  had  at  all  events  the  effect  of  making 
women  believe  in  him. 

Madame  Sabaroff  is  not  so  easily  touched  as  many. 
She  pauses  a  moment,  then  says,  with  a  certain  weari- 
ness, "  Anybody  who  can  believe  can  love  :  that  is 
nothing  new." 

"  What  would  be  new  ?  To  love  and  disbelieve  in 
what  we  love  ?  It  would  be  very  painful." 

*'  It  would  be  a  test,"  says  his  companion. 

Then  she  drops  the  subject  decidedly,  by  approach- 
ing the  other  ladies.  Brandolin  has  a  faint  sense 
of  discomfiture  and  sadness  :  he  is  accustomed  to 
very  facile  conquests;  and  yet  he  is  not  a  coxcomb, 
like  Lawrence  Hamilton  :  he  did  not  precisely  antici- 
pate one  here,  but  habit  is  second  nature,  and  it  has 
been  his  habit  to  succeed  with  women  with  rapidity 
and  ease.  That  sense  of  mystery  which  there  is  also 
for  him  in  the  Princess  Xenia  oppresses  whilst  it 
allures  him.  He  is  English  enough  to  think  that  he 
dislikes  mystery,  yet  as  an  element  of  romance  it  has 
always  an  irresistible  fascination  for  romantic  tempera- 
ments. 

Gervase  meanwhile  has  sunk  into  a  chair  by  the  side 
of  Nina  Curzon,  and  is  saying,  in  a  whisper,  "  Who  is 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  119 

that  lady  ?  The  one  with  her  back  to  us,  to  whom 
Lord  Brandolin  is  so  empresse  ?  I  thought  that  I  knew 
all  the  Usks'  people." 

"  Look  in  your  Russian  memories,  and  you  will  prob- 
ably find  that  you  know  her  too,"  replies  Mrs.  Curzon. 

"  Oh,  she  is  Russian  ? "  says  Gervase,  then  adds, 
negligently,  "  I  think,  now  you  tell  me  that,  I  have 
seen  her  before.  Is  she  not  the  Princess  Sabaroff?" 

"Why  did  you  pretend  not  to  know  her?"  thinks 
Nina  Curzon  as  she  answers,  "  Yes,  that  is  her  name. 
You  must  have  met  her  in  Petersburg." 

"  Petersburg  is  very  dim  in  my  memories,"  he  re- 
plies, evasively.  "  Its  baccarat  is  what  made  the 
deepest  impression  on  my  remembrance  and  my  fort- 
unes. Now  I  think  of  it,  however,  I  recollect  her 
quite  well :  her  husband  was  Anatole  Sabaroff,  and 
Lustoff  shot  him  in  a  duel  about  her  ?  Am  I  right  ?  " 

"  So  charming  for  her ! "  says  Nina  Curzon.  "  Eng- 
lishwomen never  have  anything  happen  for  them 
picturesque  like  that ;  our  men  always  die  of  indiges- 
tion, or  going  after  a  fox." 

"  It  is  very  curious." 

"What  is?    Dyspepsia?    Hunting?" 

"  How  one  comes  across  people." 

" '  After  long  years,'  "  quotes  Mrs.  Curzon,  with 
mock  romance  in  her  tones.  "  Generally,  I  think,"  she 
adds,  with  a  little  yawn,  "  we  can  never  get  rid  of  our 
people,  the  world  is  so  small,  and  there  is  really  only 


120  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

one  set  in  it  that  is  decent,  so  we  can't  ever  get  out  of 
it.  It  must  have  been  very  nice  in  Romeo  and  Juliet's 
days,  when  a  little  drive  to  Mantua  took  you  into 
realms  wholly  inaccessible  to  your  Verona  acquaint- 
ances. Nowadays,  if  you  run  away  from  anybody  in 
London  you  are  sure  to  run  against  them  in  Yeddo  or 
Yucatan." 

"Constancy  made  easy,  like  the  three  R's,"  says 
Gervase.  "Unfortunately,  despite  our  improved  fa- 
cilities, we  are  not  constant." 

"He  means  to  imply  that  he  threw  over  the  Sab- 
aroff,"  thinks  Mrs.  Curzon  ;  "  but  he  is  such  a  boaster 
of  his  bonnes  fortunes  that  one  can  never  know  whether 
he  is  lying." 

"  Pray  let  me  make  you  known  to  Madame  Sabaroff," 
says  Lady  Usk  to  him,  a  little  later.  "  She  is  such  a 
very  dear  friend  of  mine,  and  I  see  you  have  been 
looking  at  her  ever  since  she  entered  the  room." 

"  She  is  a  very  handsome  person  :  any  one  would 
look  at  her,"  replies  her  cousin.  Were  he  not  so  per- 
fectly well-bred  and  impassive,  it  might  almost  be  said 
that  the  suggested  presentation  fills  him  with  some 
vague  nervousness. 

Nina  Curzon  watches  him  inquisitively  as  he  is  led 
up  and  presented  to  Madame  Sabaroff. 

UI  think  I  have  had  the  honor  before  now,  in 
Petersburg,"  murmurs  Gervase.  She  looks  at  him 
very  coldly. 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  121 

"  I  think  not,"  she  replies.  The  words  are  of  the 
simplest,  but  c'est  le  ton  quifait  la  musique,  and,  for 
the  solitary  time  in  his  existence,  Lord  Gervase  is 
embarrassed. 

Brandolin,  playing  with  the  colley  dog  near  at 
hand,  listens  and  observes. 

Lady  Usk  is  not  so  observant.  "  It  is  a  long  time 
since  he  was  in  Russia,"  she  says  to  her  friend,  "  I 
dare  say  you  have  forgotten.  His  father  was  alive, 
and  his  name  was  Baird  then,  you  know." 

Xenia  Zabaroff  makes  a  little  polite  gesture  expres- 
sive of  entire  indifference  to  the  change  in  these  titles. 
With  an  acticm  which  would  be  rude  in  any  woman 
less  high-bred,  she  turns  away  her  head  and  speaks  to 
Brandolin,  ignoring  the  acquaintance  and  the  presence 
of  Gervase. 

Across  the  good-natured  and  busy  brain  of  her 
hostess  there  flashes  an  electric  and  odious  thought : 
is  it  possible  *hat  Usk  may  be  right,  and  that  there 
may  be  somet  hing  wrong,  after  all,  in  this  her  latest 
and  most  adored  friend?  She  feels  that  she  will  die 
of  suffocated  curiosity  if  she  do  not  speedily  get  her 
cousin  alon'B  and  learn  all  he  has  ever  known  or  heard 
of  the  Princess  Sabaroff. 

"A  80 nb  direct!"  whispers  Lawrence  Hamilton  to 
Mr.  Written. 

"Of  a  cut  direct:  which?"  says  that  far-sighted 


122  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

u  Anyhow,  it's  delightful  to  see  him  let  in  for  it," 
reflects  Usk,  who  has  also  observed  the  incident  from 
where  he  stands  by  the  liqueurs. 

Gervase,  who  has  never  been  known  to  be  at  a  loss 
in  any  position,  however  difficult,  colors  and  looks  at 
once  annoyed  and  confused.  He  stands  before  Xenia 
Sabaroff  for  a  few  moments  hesitating  and  irresolute, 
conscious  that  every  one  is  looking  at  him ;  then  he 
takes  refuge  with  Lady  Dawlish,  whom  he  detests,  be- 
cause she  is  the  nearest  person  to  him. 

"  Madame  Sabaroff  is  eclipsing  the  black  women," 
says  that  lady. 

*4  What  black  women  ?  "  asks  Gervase,  very  inatten- 
tive and  bored.  She  tells  him  the  story  of  the  Hindoo 
harem,  and  he  hears  no  word  of  it. 

"Brandolin  is  always  so  odd,"  he  says,  indifferently, 
watching  the  hand  of  Xenia  Sabaroff  as  it  rests  on  the 
shoulder  of  the  Babe,  who  is  leaning  against  her  knees 
gazing  at  her  adoringly. 

Gervase  is  angered,  irritated,  interested,  and  mortified 
all  at  once.  He  has  never  been  in  an  absurd  position 
before,  and  he  is  aware  that  he  was  in  one  a  moment 
ago,  and  that  the  whole  house-party  of  Surrenden 
Court  saw  him  in  it.  "  What  a  fool  Dolly  was  not  to 
tell  me  she  was  here  !  "  he  thinks,  for^ettin^  that  his 

*  o  o 

cousin  and  hostess  has  not  the  remotest  suspicion  that  he 

and  the  Princess  Xenia  have  ever  met  each  other  before. 

"  Seven  years ! "  he  thinks.     "  Good  heavens !  what 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  123 

an  eternity  !  And  she  is  handsomer  than  she  was  then ; 
very  handsome  ;  wonderfully  handsome." 

He  looks  at  her  all  the  while  from  under  his  half- 
closed  eyelids,  whilst  he  talks  he  knows  not  what  kind 
of  rubbish  to  Lady  Dawlish. 

Xenia  Sabaroff  does  not  once  look  his  way.  The 
moment  which  she  had  dreaded  has  passed,  and  it  has 
made  no  impression  whatever  upon  her:  her  indif- 
ference reconciles  her  to  herself.  Is  it  possible,  she 
wonders,  that  she  ever  loved,  or  ever  thought  that  she 
loved,  this  man  ? 

"Why  will  you  always  treat  me  as  a  stranger, 
Madame  Sabaroff  ? "  murmurs  Gervase  to  her  that 
night  when  for  a  moment  he  is  alone  near  her,  while 
the  cotillion  overture  commences. 

"  You  are  a  stranger — to  me,"  replies  Xenia  Sabaroff ; 
and  as  she  speaks  she  looks  full  at  him. 

He  colors  with  discomfiture.  "  Because  in  the  due 
course  of  nature  I  have  succeeded  to  my  father's  title, 
you  seem  to  consider  that  I  have  changed  my  whole 
identity,"  he  says,  with  great  irritation. 

She  is  silent ;  she  looks  down  on  the  white  ostrich- 
feathers  of  her  fan.  He  is  vaguely  encouraged  by  that 
silence.  "  Strangers !  That  is  surely  a  very  cold  and 
cruel  word  between  those  who  once  were  friends  ?  " 

The  direct  appeal  to  her  makes  her  look  up  once 
more,  with  great  hauteur  in  the  coldness  of  her  face. 

"  Sir,  I  think  when  people  have  forgotten  that  each 


124  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

other  exist,  it  is  as  though  they  had  never  met.  They 
are  perhaps  something  more  distant  still  than  strangers, 
for  to  strangers  friendship  in  the  future  is  possible  ; 
but  those  who  have  been  separated  by  oblivion  on  the 
one  hand  and  by  contempt  on  the  other  are  parted  as 
surely  and  eternally  as  though  death  had  divided  them." 

Gervase  gathers  some  solace  from  the  very  strength 
of  the  words.  She  would  not,  he  thinks,  feel  so 
strongly  unless  she  felt  more  than  he  allows :  he  gazes 
at  her  with  feigned  humility  and  unfeigned  admiration 
and  regret. 

"If  Madame  Sabaroff,"  he  murmurs,  "can  doubt 
her  own  powers  of  compelling  remembrance,  she  is  the 
one  person  on  earth  only  who  can  do  so." 

She  is  stung  to  anger. 

"  I  am  really  at  loss  to  decide  whether  you  are  in" 
tentionally  insolent  or  unintentionally  insincere.  You 
are  possibly  both." 

"  I  am  neither.  I  am  only  a  man  who  passionately 
and  uselessly  rebels  against  his  fate." 

"  Who  regrets  his  own  actions,  you  mean  to  say. 
That  is  nothing  uncommon." 

"  Well,  who  regrets  the  past,  if  you  will  put  it  so, 
and  who  would  atone  for  it  would  you  allow  him." 

"  Atone !  Do  you  suppose  that  you  owe  me  repara- 
tion ?  It  is  I  who  owe  you  thanks  for  a  momentary 
oblivion  which  did  me  immeasurable  service." 

"That   is    a  very   harsh   doctrine.      The   Princess 


A  NEW  ARRIVAL.  125 

Xenia  whom  I  knew  was  neither  so  stern  nor  so 
sceptical." 

"  The  Princess  Xenia  whom  you  knew  was  a  child, 
a  foolish  child  ;  she  is  dead,  quite  as  much  dead  as 
though  she  were  under  so  many  solid  square  feet  of 
Baltic  ice.  Put  her  from  your  thoughts :  you  will 
never  awake  her." 

Then  she  rises  and  leaves  him  and  goes  out  of  the 
ball-room. 

Throughout  that  evening  he  does  not  venture  to 
approach  her  again,  and  he  endeavors  to  throw  him- 
self with  some  show  of  warmth  into  a  flirtation  with 
Nina  Curzon. 

"Why  did  you  pretend  not  to  know  her?"  says 
Mrs.  Curzon  to  him. 

He  smiles,  the  fatuous  smile  with  which  a  man  in- 
geniously expresses  what  he  would  be  thought  a  brute 
to  put  into  words. 

"  She  does  not  deign  to  know  me — now,"  he  says, 
modestly,  and  to  the  experienced  comprehension  of 
Nina  Curzon  the  words,  although  so  modest,  tell  her 
as  much  as  the  loudest  boast  could  do. 


HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DELICATE    GKOUNDS. 

GERVASB  saunters  into  bis  hostess's  boudoir  the 
next  morning,  availing  himself  of  the  privilege  ac- 
corded to  that  distant  relationship  which  it  pleases 
them  both  to  raise  into  an  intimate  cousinship.  It 
is  a  charming  boudoir,  style  Louis  Quinze,  with  the 
walls  hung  with  flowered  silk  of  that  epoch,  and  the 
dado  made  of  fans  which  belonged  to  the  same  period. 
Lady  Usk  writes  here  at  a  little  secretaire  painted  by 
Fragonard,  and  uses  an  inkstand  said  to  have  belonged 
to  Madame  de  Parabere,  made  in  the  shape  of  a  silver 
shell  driven  by  a  gold  Cupidon  ;  yet,  despite  the 
frivolity  of  these  associations,  she  contrives  to  get 
through  a  vast  mass  of  business  at  this  fragile  table, 
and  has  one  of  the  soundest  heads  for  affairs  in  all 
England.  Gervase  sits  down  and  makes  himself 
agreeable,  and  relates  to  her  many  little  episodes  of 
his  recent  experiences. 

She  is  used  to  be  the  confidante  of  her  men ;  she 
is  young  enough  to  make  a  friend  who  is  attractive 
to  them,  and  old  enough  to  lend  herself  de  bon  cceur 
to  the  recital  of  their  attachments  to  other  women. 


,  DELICATE  GROUNDS.  127 

Very  often  she  gives  them  very  good  advice,  but  she 
does  not  obtrude  it  unseasonably.  "  An  awfully  nice 
woman  all  round,"  is  the  gener.il  verdict  of  her  visit- 
ants to  the  boudoir.  She  does  not  seek  to  be  more 
than  that  to  him. 

Gervase  does  not  make  any  confidences:  he  only 
tells  her  things  which  amuse  her  and  reveal  much 
about  her  acquaintances,  nothing  about  himself.  He 
smokes  some  of  her  favorite  cigarettes,  praises  some 
new  china,  suggests  an  alteration  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  fans,  and  makes  critical  discourses  d  propos  of 
her  collection  of  snuff-boxes. 

When  he  is  going  away,  he  lingers  a  moment  in- 
tently looking  at  a  patch-box  of  vernis  Martin,  and 
says,  with  studied  carelessness,  "  Dolly,  tell  me,  when 
did  you  make  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  Sabaroff  ?" 

"  Last  year,  at  Cannes  :  why  do  you  want  to  know  ? 
She  came  and  stayed  with  us  at  Orme  last  Easter.  Is 
she  not  perfectly  charming?" 

"Very  good-looking,  says  Gervase,  absently.  "You 
don't  know  anything  about  her,  then?" 

"Know?"  repeats  his  hostess.  "What  should  I 
know  ?  What  everybody  does,  I  suppose.  I  met  her 
first  at  the  Duchesse  de  Luynes'.  You  can't  possibly 
mean  that  there  can  be  anything — anything " 

"  Oh  no,"  replies  Gervnse  ;  but  it  produces  on  his 
questioner  the  same  effect  as  if  he  had  said,  "  Oh,  yes." 

"  How    odious    men   are  !    such    scandal-mongers," 
o 


128  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

eays  Lady  Usk,  angrily.  "Talk  of  our  « damning 
with  faint  praise' !  There  is  nothing  comparable  to 
the  way  in  which  a  man  destroys  a  woman's  repu- 
tation just  by  raising  his  eyebrows  or  twisting  his 
mustache." 

"  I  have  no  mustache  to  twist,  and  am  sure  there 
is  no  reputation  which  I  wish  to  destroy,"  says  her 
cousin. 

**  Then  why  do  you  ask  me  where  I  made  her  ac- 
quaintance ?  " 

"  My  dear  Dolly !  Surely  the  most  innocent  and 
general  sort  of  question  ever  on  the  lips  of  any  human 
being!" 

"Possibly;  not  in  the  way  you  said  it,  however; 
and  when  one  knows  that  you  were  a  great  deal  in 
Russia,  it  suggests  five  hundred  things, — five  thousand 
things :  and  of  course  one  knows  he  was  shot  in  a  duel 
about  her,  and  I  believe  people  have  talked." 

"  I  have  never  helped  them  to  talk.  When  do  they 
not  talk?" 

And  beyond  this  she  cannot  prevail  upon  him  to 
go :  he  pretends  that  the  Princess  Sabaroff  is  beyond 
all  possibility  of  any  approach  of  calumny,  but  the 
protestation  produces  on  her  the  impression  that  he 
could  tell  her  a  great  deal  wholly  to  the  contrary  if  he 
chose. 

"  She  certainly  was  staying  with  Madame  de  Luynes," 
she  insists. 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  129 

"  Who  ever  said  the  lady  might  not  stay  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ?  "  replies  Gervase. 

She  is  irritated  and  vexed. 

Xenia  Sabaroff  is  her  idol  of  the  moment,  and  if  her 
idol  were  proved  human  she  would  be  very  angry. 
She  reflects  that  she  will  have  Dodo  and  the  children 
kept  more  strictly  in  the  school-room,  and  not  let  them 
wander  about  over  the  park  as  they  do  with  their 
Russian  friend  most  mornings. 

"  One  can  never  be  too  careful  with  children  of  that 
age,"  she  muses,  "and  they  are  terribly  evdlUes 
already." 

Dorothy  Usk's  friendships,  though  very  ardent,  are 
like  most  friendships  which  exist  in  society:  they  are 
apt  to  blow  about  with  every  breeze.  She  is  cordial, 
kind,  and  in  her  way  sincere ;  but  she  is  what  her 
husband  characterizes  as  "  weathercocky." 

Who  is  not  "  weathercocky  "  in  the  world  ? 

Although  so  tolerant  in  appearance  of  naughty  peo- 
ple, because  it  is  the  fashion  to  be  so,  and  not  to  be 
so  looks  priggish  and  dowdy  and  odd,  she  never  at  the 
bottom  of  her  heart  likes  her  naughty  people.  She 
has  run  very  straight  herself,  as  her  lord  would  express 
it ;  she  has  been  always  much  too  busy  to  have  time 
or  inclination  to  be  tempted  "off  the  rails,"  and  she 
has  little  patience  with  women  who  have  gone  off 
them ;  only  she  never  says  so,  because  it  would  look 
so  goody-goody  and  stupid,  and  for  fear  of  looking  so 
9 


130  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

she  even  manages  to  stifle  in  her  own  breast  her  own 
antipathy  to  Dulcia  Waverley. 

There  have  been  very  many  martyrs  to  the  sense 
that  they  ought  to  smile  at  virtue  when  they  hate  it, 
but  Dorothy  Usk's  martyrdom  is  of  a  precisely  op- 
posite kind :  she  forces  herself  to  seem  to  approve  the 
reverse  of  virtue  whilst  she  detests  it.  Anything  is 
better,  in  her  creed,  than  looking  odd  ;  and  nowadays 
you  do  look  so  odd  and  so  old-fashioned  if  you  make 
a  fuss  about  anything.  Still,  in  her  heart  of  hearts 
she  feels  excessively  vexed,  because  it  is  quite  appar- 
ent to  her  that  Gervase  knows  something  very  much 
to  the  disadvantage  of  her  new  acquaintance. 

"George  will  be  so  delighted  if  he  finds  out  that 
Madame  Sabaroff  is  like  all  those  horrid  women  he  is 
so  fond  of,"  she  reflects.  "  I  shall  never  hear  the  last 
of  it  from  him.  It  will  be  a  standing  joke  for  him 
the  whole  of  his  life." 

Certainly  Madame  Sabaroff  is  letting  Brandolin 
carry  on  with  her  more  than  is  altogether  proper. 
True,  they  are  people  who  may  marry  each  other  if 
they  please,  but  Brandolin  is  not  a  man  who  marries, 
and  his  attentions  are  never  likely  to  take  that  form. 
He  probably  pays  so  much  court  to  Madame  Sabaroff 
because  he  has  heard  that  of  her  which  leads  him  to 
suppose  that  his  efforts  may  be  couronne,  as  French 
vaudevillists  say,  without  any  thought  of  marriage. 

Lady   tlsk  has  always  known  that  he   is  horribly 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  131 

unprincipled, — more  so  than  even  men  of  his  world 
usually  are.  That  bantering  tone  of  his  is  odious,  she 
thinks;  and  he  always  has  it,  even  on  the  gravest 
subjects. 

"  What's  the  row,  my  lady  ?  You  look  ruffled !  " 
inquires  Usk,  coming  into  her  boudoir  with  a  sheaf  of 
half-opened  letters  in  his  hand. 

"  There  are  always  things  to  annoy  one,"  she  an- 
ewers,  vaguely. 

"  It  is  an  arrangement  of  a  prudential  Providence 
to  prevent  our  affections  being  set  on  this  world," 
replies  Usk,  piously. 

His  wife's  only  comment  on  this  religious  declara- 
tion is  an  impatient  twist  to  the  tail  of  her  Maltese 
dog. 

Usk  proceeds  to  turn  over  to  her  such  letters  as 
bore  him ;  they  are  countable  by  dozens ;  the  two  or 
three  which  interest  him  have  been  read  in  the  gun- 
room and  put  away  in  an  inside  pocket. 

"Mr.  Bruce  could  attend  to  all  these,"  she  says, 
looking  with  some  disgust  at  the  correspondence. 
Bruce  is  his  secretary. 

"  He  always  blunders,"  says  Usk. 

"Then  change  him,"  says  his  wife;  nevertheless 
she  is  pleased  at  the  compliment  implied  to  herself. 

"  All  secretaries  are  fools,"  says  Usk,  impartially. 

"  Even  secretaries  of  state,"  says  Mr.  Wootton,  who 
has  the  entree  of  the  boudoir,  and  saunters  in  at  that 


132  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

moment.      "  I   have   some    news   this    morning,"   he 
adds  :  "  Coltsfoot  marries  Miss  Hoard." 
u  Never !  "  exclaims  Dorothy  Usk. 
"Perfectly  true,"   says  Mr.  Wootton.     "Both   of 
them  staying  at  Dunrobin,  and  engagement  publicly 
announced." 

Lord  Coltsfoot  is  heir  to  a  dukedom  ;  Miss  Hoard 
is  the  result  in  bullion  of  iron-works. 

"Never!"  reiterates  Lady  Usk.  "It  is  impossi- 
ble that  he  can  do  such  a  horrible  thing !  "Why, 
she  has  one  shoulder  higher  than  the  other,  and  red 
eyes ! * 

"There  are  six  millions  paid  down,"  replies  Mr. 
Wootton,  sententiously. 

"  What  the  deuce  will  Mrs.  Donnington  say  ?  " 
asks  TJsk. 

"  One  never  announces  any  marriage,"  remarks 
Mr.  Wootton,  "  but  there  is  a  universal  outcry  about 
what  will  some  lady,  married  long  ago  to  somebody 
else,  say  to  it.  Curious  result  of  supposed  monog- 
amy!" 

"  It  is  quite  disgusting ! "  says  Lady  Usk.  "  Some 
of  these  new  people  are  presentable,  but  she  isn't ;  and 
Coltsfoot  is  so  good-looking  and  so  young." 

"  It  is  what  the  French  call  an  '  alliance  trds  comme 
il  fautj"  says  Usk,  from  sheer  spirit  of  contradiction. 
"  The  dukedom  is  as  full  of  holes  as  an  old  tin  pot ; 
she  tinkers  it  up  with  her  iron  and  gold ;  and  I  bet 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  133 

you  that  your  friend  Worth  will  manage  to  cut  Lady 
Coltsfoot's  gowns  so  that  one  shoulder  higher  than  the 
other  will  become  all  the  rage  next  season." 

"  Of  course  you  set  no  store  on  such  a  simple  thing 
as  happiness,"  says  his  wife,  with  acerbity. 

"  Happiness  ?  Lord,  my  dear  !  Happiness  was 
buried  with  Strephon  and  Chloe  centuries  ago !  We 
are  amused  or  bored,  we  are  successful  or  unsuccess- 
ful, we  are  popular  or  unpopular,  we  are  somebody 
or  we  are  nobody,  but  we  are  never  either  happy  or 
miserable." 

"  People  who  have  a  heart  are  still  both  I " 

"  A  heart !     You  mean  spoons  1 " 

"  What  a  hideous  expression  !  Strephon  and  Chloe 
never  used  that." 

"  When  we  have  an  unfortunate  passion  now,"  re- 
marks Mr.  Wootton,  "  we  go  to  Carlsbad.  It's  only 
an  affair  of  the  liver." 

"  Or  the  nerves,"  suggests  Usk.  "  Flirtation  is  the 
proper  thing :  flirtation  never  hurts  anybody  :  it's  like 
puff-paste,  seltzer  water,  and  Turkish  cigarettes." 

"  Puff-paste  may  bring  on  an  indigestion  when  one's 
too  old  to  eat  it ! 

"  There  !  Didn't  I  tell  you  so  ?  She's  always  say- 
ing something  about  my  age.  A  man  is  the  age  that 
he  feels." 

"  No,  a  woman  is  the  age  that  she  looks.  If  you 
will  quote  things,  quote  them  properly." 


|34  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  The  age  that  she  looks  ?  That's  so  very  variable. 
She's  twenty  when  she  enters  a  ball-room  at  midnight, 
she's  fifty  when  she  comes  out  at  sunrise ;  she's  sixteen 
when  she  goes  to  meet  somebody  at  Hurlingham,  she's 
sixty  when  she  scolds  her  maid  and  has  a  scene  with 
her  husband ! " 

Lady  Usk  interrupts  him  with  vivacity:  "And 
he  ?  Pray,  isn't  he  five-and-twenty  when  he's  in  Paris 
alone,  and  five-and-ninety  when  he's  grumbling  at 
home?" 

"  Because  he's  bored  at  home  1  Youth  is,  after  all, 
only  good  spirits.  If  you  laugh  you  are  young,  but 
your  wife  don't  make  you  laugh ;  you  pay  her  bills, 
and  go  with  her  to  a  state  ball,  and  sit  opposite  to  her 
at  dinner,  and  when  you  catch  a  cold  she  is  always 
there  to  say,  '  My  dear,  didn't  I  tell  you  so  ? '  but  I 
defy  any  man  living  to  recall  any  hour  of  his  existence 
in  which  his  wife  ever  made  him  laugh !  " 

"And  yet  you  wanted  me  to  ask  married  people 
together." 

"  Because  I  wanted  it  all  to  be  highly  proper  and 
deadly  dull.  Surrenden  has  got  a  sort  of  reputation 
of  being  a  kind  of  Orleans  Club." 

"  And  yet  you  complain  of  being  bored  in  it !  " 

"  One  is  always  bored  in  one's  own  house !  One 
can  never  take  in  to  dinner  the  person  one  likes." 

tt  You  make  up  to  yourself  for  the  deprivation  after 
dinner  1 " 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  135 

"  My  lady's  very  ruffled  to-day,"  says  Usk  to  Mr. 
Wootton.  "I  don't  know  which  of  her  doves  has 
turned  out  a  fighting-cock." 

"  That  reminds  me,"  observes  Mr.  Wootton.  "  I 
wanted  to  ask  you,  did  you  know  that  Gervase,  when 
he  was  Lord  Baird,  was  very  much  au  mieux  with 
Madame  Sabaroff?  I  remember  hearing  long  ago 
from  Russians " 

Lady  Usk  interrupts  the  great  man  angrily  :  "  Very 
much  au  mieux  !  What  barbarous  polyglot  language 
for  a  great  critic  like  you !  Must  you  have  the  as- 
sistance of  bad  grammar  in  two  tongues  to  take  away 
my  friend's  reputation  ?  " 

Lord  Usk  chuckles.  "Reputations  aren't  taken 
away  so  easily ;  they're  very  hardy  plants  nowadays, 
and  will  stand  a  good  deal  of  bad  weather." 

Mr.  Wootton  is  shocked.  "  Oh,  Lady  Usk  I  Repu- 
tation !  You  couldn't  think  I  meant  to  imply  of  any 
guest  of  yours — only,  you  know,  he  was  secretary  in 
Petersburg  when  he  was  Lord  Baird,  and  so " 

"  Well,  it  doesn't  follow  that'  he  is  the  lover  of 
every  woman  in  Petersburg !  " 

Mr.  Wootton  is  infinitely  distressed.  "  Oh,  indeed, 
I  didn't  mean  anything  of  that  sort." 

"  You  did  mean  everything  of  that  sort,"  murmurs 
his  hostess. 

"But,  you  see,  he  admired  her  very  much,  was 
constantly  with  her,  and  yesterday  I  saw  they  didn't 


136  A  HOUSE-PAETY. 

speak  to  each  other,  so  I  was  curious  to  know  what 
could  be  the  reason." 

"  I  believe  she  didn't  recognize  him." 

Mr.  "Wootton  smiles.  "  Oh,  ladies  have  such  pro- 
digious powers  of  oblivion — and  remembrance !  " 

"  Yes,"  observes  Usk,  with  complacency  :  "  the 
storms  of  memory  sometimes  sink  into  them  as  if 
they  were  sponges,  and  sometimes  glide  off  them  as  if 
they  were  ducks.  It  is  just  as  they  find  it  convenient. 
But  Madame  Sabaroff  can't  have  been  more  than  a 
child  when  Gervase  was  in  Russia." 

Mr.  Wootton  smiles  again  significantly.  "  She  was 
married." 

"  To  a  brute !  "  cries  Dorothy  Usk. 

"  All  husbands,"  says  Lord  Usk,  with  a  chuckle, 
"  are  brutes,  and  all  wives  are  angels.  C'est  int- 
prime  f  " 

"I  hope  no  one  will  ever  call  me  an  angel!  I 
should  know  at  once  that  I  was  a  bore ! " 

"No  danger,  my  lady:  you've  no  wings  on  your 
shoulders,  and  you've  salt  on  your  tongue." 

"  I'm  sure  you  mean  to  be  odiously  rude,  but  to  my 
taste  it's  a  great  compliment." 

"My  dear  Alan,"  says  Dorothy  Usk,  having  got 
him  at  a  disadvantage  in  her  boudoir  one-quarter  of 
an  hour  after  luncheon,  "  what  has  there  been  between 
you  and  the  Princess  Sabaroff?  Everybody  feels 
there  is  something.  It  is  in  the  air.  Indeed,  every- 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  137 

body  i»  talking  about  it.  Pray  tell  me.  I  am  dying 
to  know." 

Gervase  is  silent. 

"  Everybody  in  the  house  is  sure  of  it,"  continues 
his  hostess.  "  They  don't  say  so,  of  course,  but  they 
think  so.  Nina  Cui'zon,  who  is  mauvaise  langue, 
pretends  even  that  she  knows  all  the  circumstances; 
and  it  would  seem  that  they  are  not  very  nice  circum- 
stances. I  really  cannot  consent  to  go  on  in  the  dark 
any  longer." 

"  Ask  the  lady,"  replies  Gervase,  stiffly. 

"  I  certainly  shall  do  nothing  so  ill-bred.  You  are 
a  man,  you  are  a  relation  of  mine,  and  I  can  say 
things  to  you  I  couldn't  possibly  say  to  a  stranger, 
which  Madame  Sabaroff  is  quite  to  me.  If  you  won't 
answer,  I  shall  only  suppose  that  you  paid  court  to 
her  and  were  *  spun,'  as  the  boys  say  at  the  examina- 
tions." 

"  Not  at  all,"  says  Gervase,  haughtily. 

"  Then  tell  me  the  story." 

He  hesitates.  "  I  don't  know  whether  you  will 
think  very  well  of  me  if  I  tell  you  the  truth." 

"  That  you  may  be  sure  I  shall  not.  No  man  ever 
t>ehaves  well  where  women  are  in  the  question." 

"  My  dear  Dolly,  what  unkind  exaggeration !  If 
I  tell  you  anything,  you  will  be  sure  not  to  repeat  what 
I  say?  Madame  Sabaroff  considers  me  a  stranger 
to  her :  I  am  bound  to  accept  her  decision  on  such  a 
point," 


138  A  HOUSE-PARTY 

"You  knew  her  in  Russia?" 

"  Yes :  when  I  was  there  she  was  the  new  beauty  at 
the  court.  She  had  been  married  a  year  or  less  to 
Paul  Sabaroff.  I  had  the  honor  of  her  friendship  at 
that  time  :  if  she  withdraws  it  now  I  must  acquiesce." 

«  Oh ! " 

Lady  Usk  gives  a  little  sound  between  a  snort  and  a 
sigh. 

She  is  annoyed.  The  gossipers  are  right,  then.  She 
is  sorry  the  children  have  been  so  much  with  their 
friend,  and  she  is  infuriated  at  the  idea  of  her  hus- 
band's triumph  over  her  credulity. 

"  Oh,  pray  don't  think — don't  think  for  a  moment 

"  murmurs  Gervase;  but  his  cousin  understands 

that  it  is  the  conventional  compulsory  expostulation 
which  every  man  who  is  well-bred  is  bound  to  make 
on  such  subjects. 

"  She  must  have  been  very  young  then  ?  "  she  says, 
beating  impatiently  on  her  blotting-book  with  her  gold 
pen. 

"  Very  young ;  but  such  a  husband  as  Paul  Sabaroff 
made  is — well,  a  more  than  liberal  education  to  any 
woman,  however  young.  She  was  sixteen,  I  think, 
and  very  lovely;  though  she  is  perhaps  handsomer 
now.  I  had  the  honor  of  her  confidence ;  she  was 
unhappy  and  incomprise;  her  father  had  given  her 
hand  in  discharge  of  a  debt  at  cards ;  Sabaroff  was  a 
gambler  and  a  brute  ;  at  the  end  of  the  second  winter 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  139 

season  he  had  a  violent  fit  of  jealousy,  and  sent  her  to 
his  estate  on  the  White  Sea " 

"Jealousy  of  you?" 

Gervase  bowed. 

"Where  she  was  kept  in  a  state  of  surveillance 
scarcely  better  than  absolute  imprisonment.  I  did  all 
manner  of  crazy  and  romantic  things  to  endeavor  to 
see  her ;  and  once  or  twice  I  succeeded ;  but  he  had 
discovered  letters  of  mine,  and  made  her  captivity 
more  rigorous  than  ever.  I  myself  was  ordered  on 
the  special  mission  to  Spain, — you  remember, — and  I 
left  Russia  with  a  broken  heart.  From  that  time  to 
this  I  have  never  seen  her." 

"But  your  broken  heart  has  continued  to  do  its 
daily  work  ?  " 

"It  is  a  figure  of  speech.  I  adored  her,  and  the 
husband  was  a  brute.  When  Lustoff  shot  him  he 
only  rid  the  world  of  a  brute.  You  have  seen  that 
broad  bracelet  she  wears  above  the  right  elbow? 
People  always  talk  so  about  it.  She  wears  it  to  hide 
where  Sabaroff  broke  her  arm  one  night  in  his  violence : 
the  marks  of  it  are  there  forever." 

Lady  Usk  is  silent:  she  is  divided  between  her 
natural  compassion  and  sympathy,  which  are  very 
easily  roused,  and  her  irritation  at  discovering  that  her 
new  favorite  is  what  Usk  would  call  "  just  like  all  the 
rest  of  them." 

"You  perceive."  he  added,  "that,  as  the  princess 


140  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

chooses  wholly  to  ignore  the  past,  it  is  not  for  me  to 
recall  it.  I  am  obliged  to  accept  her  decision,  however 
much  I  must  suffer  from  it." 

"  Suffer  1  "  echoes  his  cousin.  "  After  her  husband's 
death  you  never  took  the  trouble  to  cross  Europe  to 
see  her." 

**  She  had  never  answered  my  letters,"  says  Gervase, 
but  he  feels  that  the  excuse  is  a  frail  one.  And  how, 
he  thinks,  angrily,  should  a  good  woman  like  his 
cousin,  who  has  never  flirted  in  her  life  and  never 
done  anything  which  might  not  have  been  printed  in 
the  daily  papers,  understand  a  man's  inevitable  incon- 
stancy ? 

«*  I  assure  you  that  I  have  never  loved  any  woman 
as  I  loved  her,"  he  continues. 

"Then  you  are  another  proof,  if  one  were  wanted, 
that  men  have  died  and  worms  have  eaten  them,  but 
not  for 


"  I  did  not  die,  certainly,"  Gervase  says,  much  irri- 
tated ;  "  but  I  suffered  greatly,  whether  you  choose  to 
believe  it  or  not." 

"  I  am  not  inclined  to  believe  it,"  replies  his  hostess, 
"  It  is  not  your  style." 

"  I  wrote  to  her  a  great  many  times." 

He  pauses. 

Lady  Usk  fills  up  the  pause.  "  And  she  answered 
you  ?  "  she  inquires. 

"  N-no,"  replies  Gervase,  unwilling  to  confess  such 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  141 

an  affront  to  him.  "  She  did  not  write.  Prudence,  I 
suppose ;  or  perhaps  she  might  be  too  closely  watched, 
or  her  letters  might  be  stopped  :  who  can  say  ?  " 

"  Nobody  but  herself,  clearly.     Well  ?  " 

"  I  was  sent  to  Madrid  ;  and  I  heard  nothing  of  her 
except  that  Sabaroff  was  shot  in  a  duel  about  her  with 
Lustoff ;  but  that  was  two  years  afterwards." 

And  when  he  was  shot  why  did  you  not  in  due 
course  go  to  the  White  Sea,  or  wherever  she  was,  and 
offer  yourself  ?  " 

"The  truth  is,  I  had  become  acquainted  with  a 
Spanish  lady " 

"  A  great  many  Spanish  ladies,  no  doubt  I  What  a 
half-hearted  Lothario ! " 

"Not  at  all.     Only  just  at  that  time " 

"Manillas,  mandolines,  balconies,  bull-fights,  high 
mass,  and  moonlight  had  the  supremacy !  My  dear 
Alan,  tell  your  story  how  you  will,  you  can't  make 
yourself  heroic." 

"  I  have  not  the  smallest  pretension  to  do  so,"  says 
Gervase,  very  much  annoyed.  "I  have  no  heroism. 
I  leave  it  to  Lord  Brandolin,  who  has  been  ship- 
wrecked five  hundred  times,  I  believe,  and  ridden  as 
many  dromedaries  over  unknown  sand-plains  as  Gor- 
don  " 

**  As  you  don't  care  in  the  least  for  her,  why  should 
you  care  if  his  shipwrecks  and  his  dromedaries  interest 
her  ?  We  don't  know  that  they  do ;  but  " 


142  -A-  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  How  little  sympathy  you  have ! " 

"  George  says  I  have  always  a  great  deal  too  much. 
What  do  you  want  me  to  sympathize  with  ?  Accord- 
ing to  your  own  story,  you  'loved  and  rode  away' ;  at 
least,  took  a  through-ticket  across  Europe,  as  Lovelace 
has  to  do  in  these  prosaic  days.  If  you  did  not  go 
back  to  Russia  when  you  might  have  gone  back, 
d,  qui  la  fautef  Nobody's  but  your  own  and  the 
nameless  Spanish  lady  or  ladies' !  " 

"  You  are  very  perverse." 

"  It  is  you  who  are,  or  who  were,  perverse.  Accord- 
ing to  your  own  story,  you  adored  a  woman  when  she 
was  unattainable  ;  when  she  became  attainable  you  did 
not  even  take  the  trouble  to  get  into  a  railway-carriage  : 
you  were  otherwise  amused.  What  romantic  element 
is  there  in  such,  a  tale  as  yours  to  excite  the  smallest 
fragment  of  interest  ?  To  judge  you  out  of  your  own 
mouth,  you  seem  to  me  to  have  behaved  with  most  un- 
interesting inconstancy." 

"  It  was  four  years,  and  she  had  never  answered  my 
letters." 

"  Really  a  reason  to  make  you  esteem  her  infinitely 
more  than  if  she  had  answered  them.  My  dear  Alan, 
you  were  a  flirt,  and  you  forgot  as  flirts  forget :  why 
should  one  pity  you  for  being  so  easily  consoled  ?  You 
ought  to  be  infinitely  grateful  that  Madame  Sabaroff 
did  not  send  you  reams  of  reproaches,  and  telegraph 
you  compromising  messages  which  would  have  got  you 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  143 

into  trouble  in  Downing  Street.  The  thing  died  a 
natural  death ;  you  did  not  care  to  keep  it  alive :  why 
are  you  now  all  lamentations  over  its  grave  ?  I  really 
do  not  follow  the  course  of.  your  emotions, — if  you 
feel  any  emotion  :  I  thought  you  never  did.  Madame 
Sabaroff  has  never  been  a  person  difficult  to  follow  or 
to  find  ;  the  fashionable  intelligence  of  the  newspapers 
would  at  any  time  have  enabled  you  to  know  where 
she  was;  you  never  had  inclination  or  remembrance 
enough  to  make  you  curious  to  see  her  again,  and  then 
when  you  come  across  her  in  a  country  house  you 
think  yourself  very  ill  used  because  she  does  not  all 
at  once  fall  into  your  arms.  You  couldn't  possibly 
care  about  her,  since  you  never  tried  to  see  her  all  those 
years ! " 

Dorothy  Usk  is  really  annoyed. 

She  is  not  a  person  who  has  a  high  standard  of 
humanity  at  any  time,  and  she  knows  men  thoroughly, 
and  they  have  no  chance  of  being  heroes  in  her  sight. 
But  she  likes  a  man  to  be  a  man,  and  to  be  an  ardent 
lover  if  he  be  a  lover  at  all,  and  her  favorite  cousin 
seems  to  her  to  wear  a  poor  aspect  in  this  page  of  his 
autobiography. 

"  Pray,  did  you  know  that  she  is  as  rich  as  she  is  ?" 
she  asks,  with  some  sharpness  in  her  tone. 

Gervase  colors  a  little,  being  conscious  that  his  re- 
sponse cannot  increase  his  cousin's  sympathies  with 

him. 

10 


144  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  No.  Is  she  rich  ?  Paul  Sabaroff  was  poor.  He 
had  gambled  away  nearly  everything.  Your  children 
have  a  great  deal  of  blague  about  her  riches,  but  I 
suppose  it  is  all  nonsense." 

"  Not  nonsense  at  all.  Two  years  ago  some  silver 
was  discovered  on  a  bit  of  rough  land  which  belonged 
to  her,  somewhere  beyond  the  Urals,  I  think,  and  she  is 
enormously  rich, — will  be  richer  every  year,  they  say." 

« Indeed  1 " 

He  tries  to  look  indifferent,  but  his  cousin's  pen- 
etrating eyes  seem  to  him  to  be  reading  his  very  soul. 

"How  dreadfully  sorry  he  must  be  that  he  didn't 
leave  Madrid  ! "  she  thinks,  and  aloud  says,  irritably, 
"  Why  on  earth  didn't  you  try  to  renew  things  with 
her  all  these  three  years  ?  " 

"  I  imagined  that  I  had  forgotten  her." 

"  Well,  so  you  had, — completely  forgotten  her,  till 
you  saw  her  here." 

"  On  my  honor,  she  is  the  only  woman  I  have  ever 
really  loved." 

"  Oh,  men  always  say  that  of  somebody  or  another, 
generally  of  the  most  impossible  people.  George 
always  declares  that  the  only  woman  he  ever  really 
loved  was  a  pastry-cook  when  he  was  at  Christ- 
church." 

"Dear  Dorothy,  don't  joke.  I  assure  you  I  am 
thoroughly  in  earnest." 

"  She  certainly  has  forgotten  you." 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  ]45 

She  knows  that  for  him  to  be  convinced  of  this  is 
the  surest  way  to  revive  a  died-out  passion. 

"  Who  knows  ?  She  would  be  indifferent  in  that 
case,  and  polite :  as  it  is,  she  is  cold,  even  rude." 

"  That  may  be  resentment." 

"  Resentment  means  remembrance." 

"  Oh,  not  always." 

*'  Then  she  has  a  number  of  my  letters." 

"  So  you  said ;  you  cannot  be  so  very  sure  she  has 
kept  them.  Other  people  may  have  written  her  the 
same  sort  of  letters,  or  more  admirable  letters  still : 
how  can  you  tell?" 

He  colors  angrily.     "  She  is  not  afemme  legdre" 

"  She  is  receiving  a  great  deal  of  attention  now  from 
Lord  Brandolin,  and  she  does  not  seem  to  dislike  it. 
They  say  he  writes  exquisite  letters  to  women  he  is 
fond  of ;  I  don't  know  myself,  because  I  have  never 
had  anything  more  interesting  from  him  than  notes 
about  dinners  or  visits ;  but  they  say  so.  They  even 
say  that  his  deserted  ladies  forgive  his  desertions  be- 
cause he  writes  his  farewells  so  divinely." 

"  Lord  Brandolin's  epistolary  accomplishments  do 
not  interest  me  in  the  least.  Everybody  knows  what 
he  is  with  women."  He  pauses  a  moment,  then  adds, 
with  some  hesitation, — 

"  Dear  Dorothy,  you  know  her  very  well.  Don't 
you  think  you  could  find  out  for  me,  and  tell  me— — n 

"What?" 
10 


146  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"Well,  what  she  thinks  or  does  not  think;  in  a 
word,  how  I  stand  with  her." 

"No,—- oh,  no,  my  dear  Alan;  I  couldn't  attempt 
anything  of  that  sort, — in  my  own  house,  too :  it 
would  seem  so  horribly  rude.  Besides,  I  am  not  in 
the  least — not  the  very  least — intimate  with  her.  I 
think  her  charming,  we  are  bonnes  connaissances,  the 
children  adore  her;  but  I  have  never  said  anything 
intimate  to  her  in  my  life, — never." 

"  But  you  have  so  much  tact." 

"  The  more  tact  I  have,  the  less  likely  shall  I  be  to 
recall  to  her  what  she  is  evidently  perfectly  deter- 
mined to  ignore.  You  can  do  it  yourself  if  you  want 
it  done.  You  are  not  usually  shy." 

Gervase  gets  up  impatiently,  and  walks  about  in  the 
narrow  limits  of  the  boudoir,  to  the  peril  of  the  Sevres 
and  Saxe. 

"  But  women  have  a  hundred  indirect  ways  of  find- 
ing out  everything :  you  might  discover  perfectly  well, 
if  you  chose,  whether — whether,  she  feels  anger  or 
any  other  sentiment ;  whether — whether,  in  a  word,  it 
would  be  prudent  to  recall  the  past  to  her." 

Lady  Usk  shakes  her  head  with  energy,  stirring  all 
its  pretty  blonde  curls,  real  and  false.  "  Entre  Varbre 
et  r^corce  ne  mettez  pas  le  doigt.  That  is  sound  advice 
which  I  have  heard  given  at  the  Fran9ais." 

"That  is  said  of  not  interfering  between  married 
people." 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  147 

"  It  is  generally  true  of  people  who  wish,  or  may 
not  wish,  to  marry.  And  I  suppose,  Alan,  that  when 
you  speak  in  my  house  of  renewing  your — your — re- 
lations with  the  Princess  Sabaroff,  you  do  not  mean 
that  you  have  any  object  less  serious  than  le  bon 
motif?" 

Gervase  is  amused,  although  he  is  disconcerted  and 
irritated. 

"Come  Dorothy,  your  guests  are  not  always  so 
very  serious,  are  they?  I  never  knew  you  so  prim 
before." 

Then  she  in  turn  feels  angry.  She  always  steadily 
adheres  to  the  convenient  fiction  that  she  knows 
nothing  whatever  of  the  amorous  filaments  which 
bind  her  guests  together  in  pairs,  as  turtle-doves  might 
be  tied  together  by  blue  ribbons. 

"If  you  only  desire  to  reawake  the  sentiments  of 
Madame  Sabaroff  in  your  favor  that  you  may  again 
make  sport  of  them,  you  must  excuse  me  if  I  say  that 
I  cannot  assist  your  efforts,  and  that  I  sincerely  hope 
they  will  not  be  successful,"  she  says,  with  dignity  and 
distance. 

"  Do  you  suppose  his  are  any  better  than  mine  ? " 
asks  Gervase,  irritably,  as  he  waves  his  hand  towards 
the  window  which  looks  on  the  west  gardens.  Be- 
tween the  yew  and  cedar-trees,  at  some  distance  from 
the  house,  Brandolin  is  walking  besides  Xenia  Saba- 
roff ;  his  manner  is  interested  and  deferential :  she 


148  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

moves  with  slow  and  graceful  steps  down  the  grassy 
paths,  listening  with  apparent  willingness,  her  head  is 
uncovered,  she  carries  a  large  sunshade  opened  over  it 
made  of  white  lace  and  pale-rose  silk,  she  has  a  cluster 
of  Duchess  of  Sutherland  roses  in  her  hand.  They 
are  really  only  speaking  of  recent  French  poets,  but 
those  who  look  at  them  cannot  divine  that. 

"  He  is  not  my  cousin,  and  he  does  not  solicit  my 
assistance,"  says  Dorothy  Usk,  seeing  the  figures  in 
her  garden  with  some  displeasure.  "Je  nefais  pas  la 
police  pour  les  autres ;  but  if  he  asks  me  what  you 
asked  me,  I  should  give  him  the  same  answer  that  I 
give  to  you." 

"He  is  probably  independent  of  any  assistance," 
says  Gervase,  with  irritable  irony. 

"  Probably,"  says  his  hostess,  who  is  very  skillful  at 
fanning  faint  flame.  "  He  is  not  a  man  whom  I  like 
myself,  but  many  women — most  women,  I  believe — 
think  him  irresistible. 

Thereon  she  leaves  him,  without  any  more  sympathy 
or  solace,  to  go  and  receive  some  county  people  who 
have  come  to  call,  and  who  converse  principally  about 
prize  poultry. 

"  Comme  elles  sont  assommees  avec  leurs  poules  f  " 
says  the  Marquise  de  Caillac,  who  chances  to  be  present 
at  this  infliction,  and  gazes  in  stupefaction  at  a  dow- 
ager duchess  who  has  driven  over  from  twenty  miles  off, 
who  wears  very  thick  boots,  her  own  thin  gray  hair, 


DELICATE  GROUNDS.  149 

water-proof  tweed  clothing,  and  a  hat  tied  under  her 
double  chin  with  black  strings.  "  Tfnpaquetl"  mur- 
murs Madame  de  Caillac ;  "  un  veritable  paquet !  " 

"  C'est  la  vertu  anglaisey  un  peu  demodee  says  Lord 
Ion  a,  with  a  yawn. 

Gervase  stays  on  as  well  as  Brandolin,  somewhat 
bored,  very  much  enervet  but  fascinated,  too,  by  the 
presence  of  his  Russian  Ariadne,  and  stung  by  the 
sight  of  Brandolin's  attentions  to  her  into  such  a 
strong  sense  of  revived  passion  that  he  means  what  he 
says  when  he  declares  to  his  cousin  that  the  wife  of 
Sabaroff  was  the  only  woman  he  has  ever  really  loved. 
Her  manner  to  him  also,  not  cold  enough  to  be  compli- 
mentary, but  entirely  indifferent,  never  troubled,  never 
moved  in  any  way  by  his  vicinity  or  by  his  direct 
allusions  to  the  past,  is  such  as  irritates,  piques,  at- 
tracts, and  magnetizes  him.  It  seems  to  him  incredi- 
ble that  any  woman  can  ignore  him  so  utterly.  If  she 
only  seemed  afraid  of  him,  agitated  in  any  way,  even 
adversely,  he  could  understand  what  was  passing  in 
her  mind ;  but  he  cannot  even  flatter  himself  that  she 
does  this :  she  treats  him  with  just  such  perfect  indif- 
ference as  she  shows  to  the  Duke  of  Queenstown  01 
Hugo  Mandeville  or  any  one  of  the  gilded  youths 
there  present.  If  he  could  once  see  a  wistful  memory 
in  her  glance,  once  see  a  flush  of  color  on  her  face  at  his 
approach,  it  is  probable  that  his  vanity  would  be  satis- 
fied and  his  interest  cease  as  quickly  as  it  has  revived ; 


150  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

but  he  never  does  see  anything  of  this  sort,  and,  by 
the  rule  of  contradiction,  his  desire  to  see  it  increases. 
And  he  wonders  uneasily  what  she  b/*s  done  with  his 
letters. 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  lol 


CHAPTER  X. 

COMPROMISING  LETTERS. 

LORD  GERVASE  was  eight  years  younger  when  he 
wrote  those  letters  than  he  is  now,  and  he  has  un- 
pleasant  recollections  of  unpleasant  passages  in  them 
which  would  compromise  him  in  his  career,  or  at  least 
get  him  horribly  talked  about,  were  they  ever  made 
sport  of  in  the  world.  Where  are  his  letters  ?  Has 
Madame  Sabaroff  kept  them?  He  longs  to  ask  her, 
but  he  dare  not. 

He  does  not  say  to  his  cousin  that  he  has  more  than 
once  endeavored  to  hint  to  Xenia  Sabaroff  that  it 
would  be  sweet  to  him  to  recall  the  past,  would  she 
permit  it.  But  he  has  elicited  no  response.  She  has 
evaded  without  directly  avoiding  him.  She  is  no 
longer  the  impressionable  shy  girl  whom  he  knew  in 
Russia,  weighted  with  an  unhappy  fate,  and  rather 
alarmed  by  the  very  successes  of  her  own  beauty  than 
flattered  by  them.  She  is  a  woman  of  the  world,  who 
knows  her  own  value  and  her  own  power  to  charm, 
and  has  acquired  the  talent  which  the  world  teaches, 
of  reading  the  rninds  of  others  without  revealing  her 


152  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

pwn.  Saule  pleureur  !  the  Petersburg  court  ladies  had 
used  to  call  her  in  those  early  times  when  the  tears 
had  started  to  her  eyes  so  quickly ,  but  no  one  ever 
sees  tears  in  her  eyes  now. 

Gervase  is  profoundly  troubled  to  find  how  much 
genuine  emotion  the  presence  of  a  woman  whose 
existence  he  had  long  forgotten  has  power  to  excite  in 
him.  He  does  not  like  emotion  of  any  kind ;  and  in 
all  his  affairs  of  the  heart  he  is  accustomed  to  make 
others  suffer,  not  himself.  Vanity  and  wounded  vanity 
enter  so  largely  into  the  influences  moulding  human 
life,  that  it  is  very  possible,  if  the  sight  of  him  had  had 
power  to  disturb  her,  the  renewal  of  association  with 
her  would  have  left  him  unmoved.  But,  as  it  is, 
he  has  been  piqued,  mortified,  excited,  and  attracted ; 
and  the  admiration  which  Brandolin  and  Lawrence 
Hamilton  and  other  men  plainly  show  of  her  is  the 
sharpest  spur  to  memory  and  to  desire. 

Whenever  he  has  remembered  Xenia  Sabaroff,  at 
such  rare  times  as  he  has  heard  her  name  mentioned 
in  the  world,  he  has  thought  of  her  complacently  as 
dwelling  in  the  solitudes  of  Baltic  forests,  entirely 
devoted  to  his  memory.  Women  who  are  entirely 
devoted  to  their  memory  men  seldom  trouble  them- 
selves to  seek  out ;  but  to  see  her  courted,  sought,  and 
desired,  more  handsome  than  ever,  and  apparently 
wholly  indifferent  to  himself,  is  a  shock  to  his  self- 
esteem,  and  galvanism  to  his  dead  wishes  and  slumber- 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  153 

ing  recollections.  He  begins  to  perceive  that  he 
would  have  done  better  not  to  forget  her  quite  so 
quickly. 

Meanwhile,  all  the  guests  at  Surrenden,  guided  by 
a  hint  from  Nina  Curzon,  begin  to  see  a  quantity  of 
things  which  do  not  exist,  and  to  exert  their  minds 
in  endeavoring  to  remember  a  vast  deal  which  they 
never  heard  with  regard  to  both  himself  and  her. 
No  one  knows  anything  or  has  a  shadow  of  fact  to  go 
on,  but  this  is  an  insignificant  detail  which  does  not 
tie  their  tongues  in  the  least.  Nina  Curzou  has  in- 
vention enough  to  supply  any  lacunce,  and  in  this 
instance  her  imagination  is  stimulated  by  a  double 
jealousy:  she  is  jealous  of  Lawrence  Hamilton,  whom 
she  is  inclined  to  dismiss,  and  she  is  jealous  of  Bran- 
dolin,  whom  she  is  inclined  to  appropriate. 

Twenty-four  hours  have  not  elapsed  since  the 
arrival  of  Gervase,  before  she  has  given  a  dozen 
people  the  intimate  conviction  that  she  knows  all  about 
him  and  the  Princess  Sabaroff,  and  that  there  is  some- 
thing very  dreadful  in  it, — much  worse  than  in  the 
usual  history  of  such  relations.  Everything  is  pos- 
sible in  Russia,  she  says,  and  has  a  way  of  saying  this 
which  suggests  unfathomable  abysses  of  license  and 
crime. 

No  one  has  the  slightest  idea  what  she  means,  but 
no  one  will  be  behind  any  other'  in  conjecturing;  and 
there  rises  about  the  unconscious  ficrure  of  Xenia 


154  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Sabaroff  a  haze  of  vague  suggested  indistinct  sus- 
picion, like  the  smoke  of  the  blue  fires  which  hide 
the  form  of  the  Evil  One  on  the  stage  in  operas. 
Brandolin  perceives  it,  and  is  deeply  irritated. 

"  What  is  it  to  me?"  he  says  to  himself,  but  says  so 
in  vain. 

Fragments  of  these  ingenious  conjectures  and  im- 
aginary recollections  come  to  his  ear  and  annoy  him 
intensely, — annoy  him  the  more  because  his  swift  in- 
tuitions and  unerring  perceptions  have  told  him  from 
his  own  observation  that  Xenia  Sabaroff  does  not  see 
in  Gervase  altogether  a  stranger,  though  she  has 
greeted  him  as  such.  Certain  things  are  said  which 
he  would  like  to  resent,  but  he  is  powerless  to  do  so. 

His  days  have  been  delightful  to  him  before  the 
arrival  of  this  other  man  at  Surrenden  ;  now  they  are 
troubled  and  imbittered.  Yet  he  is  not  inclined  to 
break  off  his  visit  abruptly  and  go  to  Scotland,  Ger- 
many, or  Norway,  as  might  be  wisest.  He  is  in  love 
with  Xenia  Sabaroff  in  a  manner  which  surprises  him. 
self.  He  thought  he  had  outlived  that  sort  of  boyish 
and  imaginative  passion.  But  she  has  a  great  powei 
over  his  fancy  and  his  senses,  and  she  is  more  like  his 
earliest  ideal  of  a  woman  than  anyone  he  has  ever 
met. 

"  Absurd  that  I  should  have  an  ideal  at  all  at  my 
age ! "  he  thinks  to  himself ,  but,  as  there  are  some 
who  are  never  accompanied  by  that  ethereal  attendant 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  155 

even  in  youth,  so  there  are  some  whom  it  never  leaves 
till  they  reach  their  graves. 

Therefore  when  he  hears  these  vague,  floating,  disa- 
greeable jests,  he  suffers  acutely,  and  finds  himself  in 
the  position  which  is  perhaps  most  painful  of  all  to 
any  man  who  is  a  gentleman,  that  of  being  compelled 
to  sit  silent  and  hear  a  woman  he  longs  to  protect 
lightly  spoken  of,  because  he  has  no  right  to  defend 
her,  and  would  indeed  only  compromise  her  more  if 
he  attempted  her  defence. 

People  do  not  venture  to  say  much  before  TJsk, 
because  he  is  her  host  and  might  resent  it,  but  never- 
theless he  too  hears  also  something,  and  thinks  to 
himself,  "  Didn't  I  tell  Dolly  foreigners  are  never  any 
better  than  they  should  be  ?  " 

But  Dulcia  Waverley  is  here,  and  her  languid  and 
touching  ways,  her  delicate  health,  and  her  soft  sym- 
pathies have  an  indescribable  sorcery  for  him  at  all 
times,  so  that  he  thinks  but  very  little  since  her  ar- 
rival of  anything  else.  Usk  likes  women  who  believe 
devoutly  that  he  might  have  been  a  great  politician 
if  he  had  chosen,  and  who  also  believe  in  his  ruined 
digestion  :  no  one  affects  both  these  beliefs  so  intensely 
as  Lady  Waverley,  and  when  she  tells  him  that  he 
could  have  solved  the  Irish  question  in  half  an  hour 
had  he  taken  office,  or  that  no  one  could  understand 
his  constitution  except  a  German  doctor  in  a  bath  in 
the  Bohmerwald,  whither  she  goes  herself  every  au- 


156  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

t  man,  she  does,  altogether  and  absolutely,  anything  she 
chooses  with  him. 

His  wife  sees  that  quite  well,  and  dislikes  it,  but  it 
might  be  so  much  worse,  she  reflects :  it  might  be  a 
woman  out  of  society,  or  a  public  singer,  or  an  Amer- 
ican adventuress:  so  she  is  reasonable,  and  always 
makes  bonne  mine  to  Dulcia  Waverley,  with  her 
nerves,  her  cures,  and  her  angelic  smiles.  After  all,  it 
does  not  much  matter,  she  thinks,  if  they  like  to  go 
and  drink  nasty  waters  together  and  poison  themselves 
with  sulphur,  iron,  and  potassium.  It  is  one  of  the 
odd  nineteenth-century  ways  of  playing  Antony  and 
Cleopatra. 

Notwithstanding  the  absorption  of  his  thoughts, 
Usk,  however,  one  day  spares  a  moment  from  Lady 
Waverley  and  his  own  liver,  to  put  together  words 
dropped  by  different  people  then  under  his  own  roof, 
to  ponder  upon  them,  and  finally  to  interrogate  his 
wife. 

"  Did  you  know  that  people  say  they  used  to  carry 
on  together  ?  "  he  asks,  without  preamble. 

"Who?"   asks  the  lady  of  Surrenden,  sharply. 

"  Madame  Sabaroff  and  Gervase,"  he  growls.  *'  It'd 
be  odd  if  they  hadn't,  as  they've  come  to  this  house !  " 

"  Of  course  I  knew  they  were  friends ;  but  there  was 
never  anything  between  them  in  the  vulgar  sense  which 
you  would  imply  renders  them  eligible  for  my  house," 
replies  Dorothy  Usk,  with  the  severity  of  a  woman 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  157 

whose  conscience  is  clear,  and  the  tranquillity  of  a 
woman  who  is  telling  a  falsehood. 

Usk  stares  at  her.  "  Well,  if  you  knew  it,  you  rode 
a  dark  horse,  then,  when  you  asked  her  here  ?  " 

"  Your  expressions  are  incoherent,"  returns  his  wife. 
"  If  I  wished  two  people  to  meet  when  both  were  free, 
who  had  had  a  certain  sympathy  for  each  other  when 
honor  kept  them  apart,  there  is  nothing  very  culpable 
in  it?  What  is  your  objection  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Lord,  I've  no  objection :  I  don't  care  a  straw," 
says  her  lord,  with  a  very  moody  expression.  "  But 
Brandolin  will,  I  suspect :  she's  certainly  encouraged 
him.  I  think  you  might  have  shown  us  your  cards." 

"Lord  Brandolin  is  certainly  old  enough  to  take 
care  of  himself  in  affairs  of  the  heart,  and  experienced 
enough,  too,  if  one  is  to  believe  all  one  hears,"  replies 
his  wife.  "  What  can  he  care,  either,  for  a  person  he 
has  known  a  few  days  ?  Whereas  the  attachment  of 
Gervase  to  her  is  of  very  long  date  and  most  roman- 
tic origin.  He  has  loved  her  hopelessly  for  eight 
years." 

Usk  gives  a  grim  guffaw.  "  The  constancy  has  had 
many  interludes,  I  suspect !  Now  I  see  why  you  took 
such  a  craze  for  the  lady;  but  you  might  have  said 
what  you  were  after  to  me,  at  any  rate.  I  could  have 
hinted  to  Brandolin  how  the  land  lay,  and  he  wouldn't 
have  walked  with  his  eyes  shut  into  her  net." 

"  Her  '  net '  ?    She  is  as  cold  as  ice  to  him !  "  replies 


158  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

his  wife,  with  disgust ;  "  and,  were  she  otherwise,  the 
loves  of  your  friend  are  soon  consoled.  He  writes  a 
letter,  takes  a  voyage,  and  throws  his  memories  over- 
board. Alan's  temperament  is  far  more  serious." 

"  If  by  serious  you  mean  selfish,  I  agree  with  you^ 
There  isn't  such  another  d  d  egotist  anywhere  un- 
der the  sun."  And,  much  out  of  temper,  Usk  flings 
himself  out  of  the  room  and  goes  to  Lady  Waverley, 
who  is  lying  on  a  sofa  in  the  small  library.  She  has  a 
headache,  but  her  smile  is  sweet,  her  hand  cool,  her 
atmosphere  soothing  and  delightful,  with  the  blinds 
down  and  an  odor  of  attar  of  roses. 

If  any  one  were  to  tell  Dolly  Usk  that  she  had 
been  making  up  fibs  on  this  occasion,  she  would  be 
mortally  offended  and  surprised.  She  would  reply 
that  she  had  only  been  brodant  un  peit, — putting  the 
thing  as  it  ought  to  be  put,  as  it  must  be  put,  if  Ger- 
vase  is  to  obtain  the  hand  of  Xenia  Sabaroff,  and  if 
nobody  is  to  know  anything  which  ought  not  to  be 
known.  Indeed,  she  has  pondered  so  much  on  this 
manner  of  putting  it,  that  she  has  almost  ended  in 
believing  that  her  version  of  the  story  in  the  true  one. 

"  Brandolin's  feelings,  indeed ! "  she  thinks,  with 
great  contempt.  "  As  if  any  pain  he  might  feel,  if  he 
did  feel  any,  would  not  be  due  and  fitting  retribution 
upon  him  for  the  horrid  life  he  has  led,  and  the  way 
he  has  played  fast  and  loose  with  women.  He  can  go 
back  to  his  Hindoos,  whose  figures  are  so  superior  to 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  159 

any  European's!  But  George  is  always  so  absurd 
about  his  friends." 

Whereon,  being  in  an  irritated  and  unkind  mood, 
she  desires  the  servant,  who  just  then  announces  the 
visit  of  the  rector  of  the  parish,  to  show  that  reverend 
person  into  the  small  library,  where  she  knows  that 
Dulcia  "Waverley  is  trying  to  get  rid  of  her  headache, 
It  is  very  seldom  that  she  is  unwise  enough  to  indulge 
in  this  kind  of  domestic  vengeance ;  but  at  this  mo- 
ment it  seems  sweet  to  her. 

The  unfortunate  and  innocent  rector  finds  the  lord 
of  Surrenden  monosyllabic  and  impolite,  but  Lady 
Waverley,  woman-like,  is  wholly  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion, and  in  her  sweet  low  voice  discourses  of  village 
choirs,  and  village  readings,  and  village  medicines  and 
morals,  with  such  divine  patience  and  feminine  adapta- 
bility that  the  good  man  dismisses  from  his  mind 
as  impossible  what  he  had  certainly  fancied  he  saw 
in  the  moment  when  the  library  door  opened  before 
him. 

If  ever  there  was  purity  incarnate,  Dulcia  Waver- 
ley looks  it,  with  her  white  gown,  her  Madonna-like 
hair,  her  dewy  pensive  eyes,  and  her  appealing  smile. 
She  suggests  the  portraits  in  the  Keepsakes  and  For- 
get-me-Nots  of  fifty  years  ago ;  she  has  always  about 
her  the  faint  old-fashioned  perfume  of  attar  of  roses, 
and  she  wears  her  soft  fair  hair  in  Raphaelite  bands 

which  in  any  other  woman  would  look  absurd:  but 
11 


160  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

her  experience  has  told  her  that,  despite  all  change  in 
modes  and  manners,  the  surest  weapons  to  subdue 
strong  men  are  still  those  old-fashioned  charms  of 
fragility  and  of  apparent  helplessness  which  made 
Othello  weep  when  his  bridal  moon  was  young  above 
the  Venetian  waters.  Only  if  she  had  ever  spoken 
candidly  all  she  knows,  which  she  never  by  any 
chance  does,  she  would  say  that  to  succeed  thus  with 
Othello,  or  with  any  other  male  creature,  you  must  be, 
under  all  your  apparent  weakness,  tenacious  as  a  mag- 
net and  cold  as  steel.  Therein  lies  the  secret  of  all 
power :  the  velvet  glove  and  the  iron  hand  may  be  an 
old  saying,  but  it  is  a  truth  never  old. 

The  conclusion  which  she  had  drawn  from  Gervase 
and  his  fragmentary  story  has  seriously  annoyed  and 
shocked  his  cousin,  but  on  reflection  she  decides  to 
adhere  to  her  invariable  rule  of  ignoring  all  that  is 
equivocal  in  it,  and  treating  it  accordingly. 

No  one  has  ever  heard  Lady  TJsk  admit  that 
there  is  the  slightest  impropriety  in  the  relations  of 
any  of  her  guests  :  it  is  one  of  those  fictions  like  the 
convenient  fictions  of  the  law,  which  are  so  useful  that 
every  one  agrees  not  to  dispute  their  acceptance.  She 
will  never  know  a  person  who  is  really  compromised. 
Therefore,  if  there  be  any  soil  on  the  wings  of  her 
doves,  she  shuts  her  eyes  to  it  so  long  as  those  of  the 
world  are  shut.  She  has  the  agreeable  power  of  never 
seeing  what  she  wishes  to  see :  so,  although  for  the 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  161 

moment  she  has  been  uncomfortably  shocked,  she  re- 
covers her  composure  rapidly,  and  persuades  herself 
that  Gervase  merely  spoke  of  a  passing  attachment, 
perfectly  pure.  Why  should  he  not  marry  the  object 
of  it  ?  To  the  mind  of  Dorothy  Usk  that  would  make 
everything  right.  Things  may  have  been  wrong  once, 
but  that  is  nobody's  business.  Xenia  Sabaroff  is  a 
charming  and  beautiful  woman,  and  the  silver-mine 
beyond  the  Urals  is  a  very  real  thing.  Lady  Usk  is 
not  a  mercenary,  she  is  even  a  generous  woman ;  but 
when  English  fortunes  are  so  embarrassed  as  they  are 
in  this  day,  with  Socialists  at  the  roots  and  a  Jac- 
querie tearing  at  the  fruits  of  them,  any  solid  fortune 
situated  out  of  England  would  be  of  great  use  to  any 
Englishman  occupying  a  great  position. 

"We  shall  all  of  us  have  to  live  abroad  before 
long,"  she  reflects,  with  visions  of  Hodge  chopping 
down  her  palms  for  firewood  and  Sally  smashing  the 
porcelain  in  her  model  dairy. 

No  doubt  the  relations  of  her  cousin  and  her  guest 
have  not  been  always  what  they  ought  to  have  been  ; 
but  she  does  not  wish  to  think  of  this,  and  she  will 
not  think  of  it :  by-gones  are  always  best  buried.  The 
people  who  manage  to  be  happy  are  those  who  under- 
stand the  art  of  burying  them  and  use  plenty  of 
quicklime. 

During  the  twenty  years  which  has  elapsed  since 

her  presentation,  Dolly  Usk   has  had  a  very  varied 
11 


162  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

experience  of  men  and  women,  and  has  continually 
been  solicited  to  interfere  in  their  love-affairs,  or  has 
even  interfered  without  being  solicited.  She  likes  the 
feeling  of  being  a  diva  ex  machina  to  her  friends,  and, 
though  she  had  so  decidedly  refused  Gervase  her  assist- 
ance to  discover  the  state  of  Xenia  Sabaroff  s  feelings 
towards  him,  she  begins  in  her  own  mind  immediately 
to  cast  about  for  some  indirect  means  of  learning  it, 
and  arranges  in  her  own  fancy  the  whole  story  as  it 
will  sound  prettiest  and  most  proper,  if  she  be  ever 
recalled  on  to  relate  it  to  the  world. 

She  has  a  talent  at  putting  such  stories  so  nicely  in 
order  that  anything  which  may  be  objectionable  in 
them  is  altogether  invisible,  as  a  clever  faiseitr  will  so 
arrange  old  laces  on  a  court  train  that  the  darns  and 
stains  in  them  are  wholly  hidden  away.  She  likes 
exercising  her  ingenuity  in  this  way  ;  and,  although 
the  narrative  given  her  by  Gervase  has  certainly 
seemed  to  her  objectionable,  and  one  which  places  the 
hero  of  it  in  an  unpleasant  light,  it  may  with  tact  be 
turned  so  as  to  show  nothing  but  what  is  interesting. 
And  to  this  end  she  also  begins  to  drop  little  hints, 
little  phrases  suggestive  of  that  virtue  of  blameless  and 
long  constancy  with  which  it  is  necessary  to  invest  her 
cousin  Alan,  if  he  is  to  be  made  a  centre  of  romance. 
She  even  essays  these  very  delicately  on  the  ear  of 
Xenia  Sabaroff ;  but  they  are  met  with  so  absolute  a 
lack  of  response,  so  discouraging  and  cold  an  absence 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS,  163 

of  all  understanding,  that  she  cannot  continue  to  try 
them  in  that  direction. 

"  If  that  odious  Brandolin  were  not  here ! "  she 
thinks,  irritably 

The  attentions  of  Brandolin  are  very  marked  to  the 
Princess  Sabaroff,  and  are  characterized  by  that  care- 
lessness of  comment  and  that  color  of  romance  which 
have  always  marked  his  interest  in  any  woman.  He 
is  not  a  rival  d,  plaisanter,  she  knows ;  but  then  she 
knows,  too,  that  he  never  is  serious  in  these  matters. 
When  she  first  hears  the  story  of  Gervase,  she  heartily 
wishes  that  there  were  any  pretence  to  get  rid  of 
Xenia  Sabaroff,  and  hastily  wonders  what  excuse  she 
could  make  to  break  up  her  Surrenden  circle.  But  on 
reflection  she  desires  as  strongly  to  retain  her  there ; 
and,  as  there  is  to  be  a  child's  costume  ball  on  the 
occasion  of  the  Babe's  birthday  a  fortnight  hence,  she 
makes  the  children  entreat  their  friend  to  stay  for  it, 
and  adds  her  own  solicitation  to  theirs.  Madame 
Sabaroff  hesitates,  is  inclined  to  refuse,  but  at  length 
acquiesces 

Unfortunately,  TJsk,  who  always  to  his  wife's  mind 
represents  the  bull  in  the  china-shop  with  regard  to 
any  of  her  delicate  and  intricate  combinations,  insists 
that  Brandolin  shall  not  leave  either.  So  the  situation 
remains  unchanged,  though  many  guests  come  and  go, 
some  staying  two  days,  some  three  or  four. 

Xenia  Sabaroff  has   seen  and  suffered  tnough    to 


164  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

make  her  not  lightly  won  or  easily  impressed.  She 
knows  enough  of  the  world  to  know  her  own  value 
in  it,  and  she  has  measured  the  brutality  and  the  in- 
consistency which  may  lie  under  the  most  polished 
exterior. 

"  I  am  not  old  yet  in  years,"  she  says,  once,  "  but 
I  am  very  old  in  some  things.  I  have  no  illusions." 

"  When  there  is  a  frost  in  spring  the  field-flowers 
die,"  says  Brandolin,  softly,  "  but  they  come  again." 

"  In  the  fields,  perhaps,"  replies  Xenia  Sabaroff. 

"And  in  the  human  heart,"  says  Brandolin. 

He  longs  to  ask  her  what  have  been  the  relations 
between  her  and  Gervase  which  people  seem  so  sure 
have  existed  once ;  he  longs  to  know  whether  it  was 
the  brutality  of  her  husband,  or  the  infidelity  of  any 
lover,  which  has  taught  her  so  early  the  instability  of 
human  happiness. 

But  he  hesitates  before  any  demand,  however  veiled 
or  delicate,  upon  her  confidence.  He  has  known  her 
such  a  little  while,  and  he  is  conscious  that  she  is  not 
a  femme  facile.  It  is  her  greatest  fascination  for  him  : 
though  he  is  credited  with  holding  women  lightly,  he 
is  a  man  whose  theories  of  what  they  ought  to  be  are 
high  and  difficult  to  realize.  Each  day  that  he  sees 
her  at  Surrenden  tends  to  convince  him  more  and  more 
that  she  does  realize  them,  despite  the  calumnies  which 
are  set  floating  round  her  name. 

One  day,  among  several  new  arrivals,  a  countryman 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  165 

of  hers  comes  down  from  London,  where,  being  mo- 
mentarily  charge-d 'affaires  of  the  Russian  Legation, 
he  has  been  cursing  the  heat,  the  dust,  the  deserted 
squares,  the  empty  clubs,  the  ugly  parks,  and  rushing 
out  of  town  whenever  he  can  for  twenty-four  hours,  as 
he  now  comes  to  Surrenden  from  Saturday  to  Monday. 
"  Comme  un  calicot !  Comme  un  calicot !  "  he  says, 
piteously.  Such  are  the  miseries  of  the  diplomatic 
service. 

He  kisses  the  hand  of  Madame  Sabaroff  with  ardor 
and  reverence  :  he  has  known  her  in  her  own  country. 
A  gleam  of  amusement  comes  into  his  half-shut  gray 
eyes  as  he  recognizes  Gervase. 

The  next  morning  is  Sunday.  Usk  and  Dulcia 
Waverley  are  at  church,  with  the  children  and  Lady 
TJsk  and  Nina  Curzon. 

Brandolin  strays  into  the  small  library,  takes  down 
a  book,  and  stretches  himself  on  a  couch.  He  half 
expects  that  Madame  Sabaroff  will  come  down  before 
luncheon  and  also  seek  a  book,  as  she  did  last  Sunday. 
He  lights  a  cigarette  and  waits,  lazily  watching  the 
peacocks  drawing  their  trains  over  the  velvety  turf 
without.  It  is  a  lovely  dewy  morning,  very  fresh  and 
fragrant  after  rains  in  the  night.  He  thinks  he  will 
persuade  her  to  go  for  a  walk  :  there  is  a  charming 
walk  near,  under  deep  trees  by  a  little  brown  brook, 
full  of  forget-me-nots. 

He  hears  a  step,  and  looks  up :  he  does  not  see  her, 


166  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

but  the  Russian  secretary,  Gregor  Litroff,  always  called 
"  Toffy  "  by  his  female  friends  in  England. 

"Dieu  de  Dieuf  What  an  institution  your  English 
Sunday  is!"  says  Litroff,  with  a  yawn.  "I  looked 
out  of  my  window  an  hour  ago,  and  beheld  Usk 
in  a  tall  hat,  with  his  little  boy  on  one  side  and 
miladi  Waverley  on  the  other,  solemnly  going  to 
church.  How  droll  I  He  would  not  do  it  in  Lon- 
don." 

"  It  is  not  more  ridiculous  to  go  to  church  in  a  tall 
hat  than  to  prostrate  yourself  and  kiss  a  wooden  cross, 
as  you  would  do  if  you  were  at  home,"  says  Bran- 
dolin,  contemptuously,  eying  the  intruder  with  irrita- 
tion. 

"  That  may  be,"  says  the  secretary,  good-humoredly. 
"  We  do  it  from  habit,  to  set  an  example,  not  to  make 
a  fuss.  So,  I  suppose,  does  he." 

"  Precisely,"  says  Brandolin,  wondering  how  he  shall 
get  rid  of  this  man. 

"  And  he  takes  Lady  Waverley  for  an  example,  too  ?  " 
asks  Litroff,  with  a  laugh. 

"  Religion  enjoins  us,"  replies  Brandolin,  curtly, 
u  to  offer  what  we  have  most  precious  to  the  Lord." 

The  secretary  laughs  again. 

"  That  is  very  good,"  he  says,  with  enjoyment. 

Mr.  Wootton  comes  in  at  that  instant.  He  has 
been  away,  but  has  returned  :  the  cooks  at  Surrenden 
are  admirable.  Brandolin  sees  his  hopes  of  a  ttte-fo 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  167 

tdte  and  a  walk  in  the  home  wood  fading  farther  and 
farther  from  view.  Mr.  Wootton  has  several  tele- 
gram-papers in  his  hand. 

"  All  bad  news,  from  all  the  departments,"  he 
remarks. 

"  There  is  nothing  but  bad  news,"  says  Brandolin. 
"  It  is  painful  to  die  by  driblets.  We  shall  all  be  glad 
when  we  have  got  the  thing  over, — seen  Windsor 
burnt,  London  sacked,  Ireland  admitted  to  the  Ameri- 
can Union,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gladstone  crowned  at 
Westminster. 

Mr.  Wootton  coughs  :  he  does  not  like  unseemly 
jests,  nor  to  have  the  gravity  and  exclusiveness  of  the 
private  intelligence  he  receives  doubted.  He  turns  to 
Litroff,  talks  of  Russian  politics,  and  brings  the  con- 
versation round  to  the  Princess  Sabaroff. 

Brandolin,  appearing  absorbed  in  his  book,  lies  on 
his  couch  wondering  whether  he  should  meet  her  any- 
where about  the  gardens  if  he  went  out.  He  listens 
angrily  when  he  hears  her  name. 

"  Was  she  ever  talked  about  ? "  asks  Mr.  Wootton, 
searching  the  book-shelves. 

"What  charming  woman  is  not?"  returns  Litroff. 
gallantly. 

"  My  dear  count,"  replies  Mr.  Wootton,  with  grave 
rebuke,  "we  have  thousands  of  noble  wives  and 
mothers  in  England  before  whom  Satan  himself  would 
be  obliged  to  bow  in  reverence," 


J68  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  Ah,  truly,"  says  Litroff :  "  so  have  we,  I  dare  say : 
I  have  never  asked." 

"No  doubt  you  have,"  says  Mr.  Wootton  kindly. 
"  The  virtue  of  its  women  is  the  great  safeguard  of  a 
nation." 

"  One  understands  why  England  is  losing  her  nice 
equipoise,  then,  now,"  murmurs  Brandolin. 

Mr.  Wootton  disregards  him. 

"  But  Madame  Sabaroff  was  talked  about,  I  think, 
— unjustly,  no  doubt  ?  "  he  insists. 

Mr.  Wootton  always  insists. 

"  Ach  ! "  says  Litroff,  apologetically,  "  Sabaroff  was 
such  a  great  brute.  It  was  very  natural " 

«*  What  was  natural  ?  " 

"  That  she  should  console  herself.7* 

"Ah  !  she  did  console  herself?" 

"  Litroff  smiles.  "  Ask  Lord  Gervase :  he  was  Lord 
Baird  at  that  time.  We  all  expected  he  would  have 
married  her  when  Sabaroff  was  shot." 

"But  it  was  Lustoff  who  shot  Sabaroff  in  a  duel 
about  her  ?  " 

"  Not  about  her.  Lustoff  quarrelled  with  him  about 
a  gambling  affair,  not  about  her  at  all,  though  people 
have  said  so.  Lord  Baird — Gervase — was,  I  am  cer- 
tain, her  first  lover,  and  has  been  her  only  one,  as 
yet." 

Brandolin  flings  his  book  with  some  violence  on  the 
floor,  gets  up  and  walks  to  the  window.  Mr.  Woottou 
looks  after  him. 


COMPROMISING  LETTERS.  169 

"No  one  could  blame  her,"  says  Litroff,  who  is  a 
good-natured  man.  "  She  was  married  when  she  was 
scarcely  sixteen  to  a  brute;  she  was  immensely  ad- 
mired ;  she  was  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  society  both 
loose  and  brilliant ;  Gervase  laid  siege  to  her  sans 
trdoe,  and  she  was  hardly  more  than  a  child." 

"Where  there  is  no  principle  early  implanted," 
begins  Mr.  Wootton 

But  Litroff  is  not  patient  under  preaching.  "My 
dear  sir,"  he  says,  impatiently,  "  principle  (of  that 
kind)  is  more  easily  implanted  in  plain  women  than  in 
handsomer  ones.  Madame  Sabaroff  is  a  proud  woman, 
which  comes  to  nearly  the  same  thing  as  a  high-prin- 
cipled one.  She  has  lived  like  a  saint  since  Sabaroff 
was  shot,  and  if  she  take  up  matters  with  her  early 
lover  again  it  will  only  be,  I  imagine,  this  time,  pour  le 
bon  motif.  Anyhow,  I  don't  see  why  we  should  blame 
her  for  the  past,  when  the  present  shows  us  such  an 
admirable  and  edifying  spectacle  as  miladi  Waverley 
and  miladi  Usk  going  to  sit  in  church  with  George 
Usk  between  them ! 

Whereon  the  Russian  secretary  takes  a  "  Figaro  " 
off  the  newspaper-table,  and  rudely  opens  it  and  flour- 
ishes it  between  Mr.  Wootton  and  himself,  in  sign  that 
the  conversation  is  ended. 

Mr.  Wootton  has  never  been  so  treated  in  his/  life. 


170  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

WAS   SHE   GUILTY? 

BBANDOLIN  walks  down  the  opening  between  the 
glass  doors  into  the  garden.  He  paces  impatiently  the 
green  shady  walks  where  he  has  seen  her  on  other 
mornings  than  this.  It  is  lovely  weather,  and  the  in- 
numerable roses  fill  the  warm  moist  air  with  fragrance. 
There  is  a  sea-breeze  blowing  from  the  sea-coast 
some  thirty  miles  away ;  his  schooner  is  in  harbor 
there ;  he  thinks  that  it  would  be  wisest  to  go  to 
it  and  sail  away  again  for  as  many  thousand  miles 
as  he  had  just  left  behind  him.  Xenia  Sabaroff  has  a 
great  and  growing  influence  over  him,  and  he  does  not 
wish  her  to  exercise  it  and  increase  it  if  this  thing 
be  true :  perhaps,  after  all,  she  may  be  that  kind  of 
sorceress  of  which  Mary  Stuart  is  the  eternal  type, — 
cold  only  that  others  may  burn,  reculant  pour  mieux 
sauter,  exquisitely  feminine  only  to  be  more  danger- 
ously powerful.  He  does  not  wish  to  play  the  r6le 
of  Chastelard,  or  of  Douglas,  or  of  Henry  Darnley. 
He  is  stung  to  the  quick  by  what  he  has  heard 
said. 


WAS  SHE  GUILTY  ?  171 

It  is  not  new :  since  the  arrival  of  Gervase  the 
same  thing  has  been  hinted  more  or  less  clearly,  more 
or  less  obscurely,  within  his  hearing  more  than  once ; 
but  the  matter-of-fact  words  of  Litroff  have  given 
the  tale  a  kind  of  circumstantiality  and  substance 
which  the  vague  uncertain  suggestions  of  others  did 
not  do.  Litroff  has,  obviously,  no  feeling  against  her ; 
he  even  speaks  of  her  with  reluctance  and  admira- 
tion ;  therefore  his  testimony  has  a  truthfulness  about 
it  which  would  be  lacking  in  any  mere  malicious 
scandal. 

It  is  intensely  painful  to  him  to  believe,  or  even  to 
admit  to  himself  as  possible,  that  it  may  be  thus  true. 
She  seems  to  him  a  very  queen  among  women :  all 
the  romance  of  his  temperament  clothes  her  with  ideal 
qualities.  He  walks  on  unconciously  till  he  has  left 
the  west  garden  and  entered  the  wood  which  joins  it, 
and  the  grassy  seats  made  underneath  the  boughs. 
As  he  goes,  his  heart  thrills,  his  pulse  quickens :  he 
sees  Madame  Sabaroff.  She  is  seated  on  one  of  the 
turf  banks,  reading,  the  dog  of  the  house  at  her  feet. 
He  has  almost  walked  on  to  her  before  he  has  per- 
ceived her. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  murmurs,  and  pauses, 
undecided  whether  to  go  or  stay. 

She  looks  at  him  a  little  surprised  at  the  ceremony 
of  his  manner. 

"  For  what  do  you  beg  my  pardon  ?    You  are   as 


172  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

free  of  the  wood  as  I,"  she  replies,  with  a  smile.  "  I 
promised  the  children  to  keep  their  dogs  quiet,  and  to 
await  them  here  as  they  return  from  their  church." 

"  You  are  too  good  to  the  children,"  says  Brando- 
lin,  still  with  restraint.  Her  eyes  open  with  increased 
surprise.  She  has  never  seen  his  manner,  usually  so 
easy,  nonchalant  and  unstudied,  altered  before. 

"  He  must  have  heard  bad  news,"  she  thinks,  but 
says  nothing,  and  keeps  her  book  open. 

Brandolin  stands  near,  silent  and  absorbed.  He  is 
musing  what  worlds  he  would  give,  if  he  had  them, 
to  know  whether  the  story  is  true !  He  longs  pas- 
sionately to  ask  her  in  plain  words,  but  it  would  be 
too  brutal  and  too  rude ;  he  has  not  known  her  long 
enough  to  be  able  to  presume  to  do  so. 

He  watches  the  sunshine  fall  though  the  larch 
boughs  on  to  her  hands  in  their  long  loose  gloves  and 
touch  the  pearls  which  she  always  wears  at  her  throat. 

"  How  very  much  he  is  unlike  himself ! "  she 
thinks  ;  she  misses  his  spontaneous  and  picturesque 
eloquence,  his  warm  abandon  of  manner,  his  caressing 
deference  of  tone.  At  that  moment  there  is  a  gleam 
of  white  between  the  trees,  a  sound  of  voices  in  the 
distance. 

The  family  party  are  returning  from  church.  The 
dogs  jump  up  and  wag  their  tails  and  bark  their  wel- 
come, The  Babe  is  dashing  on  in  advance.  There  is 
an  end  of  their  brief  tdte~a~tete\  he  passionately  re- 


WAS  SHE  GUILTY f  173 

grets  the  loss  of  it,  though  he  is  not  sure  of  what  he 
would  have  said  in  it. 

"  Always  together ! "  says  Dulcia  Waverley,  in  a 
whisper,  to  Usk,  as  she  sees  them.  "  Does  he  know 
that  he  succeeds  Lord  Gervase,  do  you  think  ?  " 

"How  should  I  know?"  says  Usk;  "and  Dolly 
says  there  was  nothing  between  her  and  Gervase, — 
nothing ;  at  least  it  was  all  in  honor,  as  the  French 
say." 

"  Oh,  of  course,"  agrees  Lady  Waverley,  with  her 
plaintive  eyes  gazing  dreamily  down  the  aisle  of  larch- 
trees.  The  children  have  run  on  to  Madame  Sabaroff. 

"  Where  is  Alan  ?  "  thinks  Dolly  Usk,  angrily,  on 
seeing  Brandolin. 

Gervase,  who  is  not  an  early  riser,  is  then  taking 
his  coffee  in  bed  as  twelve  strikes.  He  detests  an 
English  Sunday:  although  at  Surrenden  it  is  dis- 
guised as  much  as  possible  to  look  like  any  other  day, 
still  there  is  a  Sunday  feeling  in  the  air,  and  TJsk  does 
not  like  people  to  play  cards  on  Sundays  :  it  is  his  way 
of  being  virtuous  vicariously. 

"Primitive  Christianity,"  says  Brandolin,  touching 
the  white  feathers  of  Dodo's  hat  and  the  white  lace  on 
her  short  skirts. 

"  We  only  go  to  sleep,"  replies  the  child,  disconso- 
lately. "  We  might  just  as  well  go  to  sleep  at  home  ; 
and  it  is  so  hot  in  that  pew,  with  all  that  red  cloth  !  " 

"  My  leve  ! "  says  Dulcia  Waverley,  scandalized. 


174  A  ROUSE-PAETY. 

"  Lady  Waverley  don't  go  to  sleep  !  "  cries  the  Babe, 
in  his  terribly  clear  little  voice,  "  She  was  writing  in 
her  hymn-book  and  showing  it  to  papa." 

No  one  appears  to  hear  this  indiscreet  remark  except 
Dodo,  who  laughs  somewhat  rudely. 

"I  was  trying  to  remember  the  hymn  of  Faber's 
'Longing  for  God.'"  says  Lady  Waverley,  who  is 
never  known  to  be  at  a  loss.  "  The  last  verse  escapes 
me.  Can  any  one  recall  it  ?  It  is  so  lamentable  that 
sectarianism  prevents  those  hymns  from  being  used  in 
Protestant  churches." 

But  no  one  there  present  is  religious  enough  or 
poetic  enough  to  help  her  to  the  missing  lines. 

"There  is  so  little  religious  feeling  anywhere  in 
England,"  she  remarks  with  a  sigh. 

"It's  the  confounded  levelling  that  destroys  it," 
says  Usk,  echoing  the  sigh. 

"They  speak  of  Faber,"  says  Madame  Sabaroff. 
"The  most  beautiful  and  touching  of  all  his  verses 
are  those  which  express  the  universal  sorrow  of  the 
world." 

And  in  her  low,  grave,  melodious  voice  she  repeats 
a  few  of  the  lines  of  the  poem  : 

"  The  sea,  unmated  creature,  tired  and  lone, 
Makes  on  its  desolate  sands  eternal  moan. 
Lakes  on  the  calmest  days  are  ever  throbbing 
Upon  their  pebbly  shores  with  petulant  sobbing. 


'A 
WAS  SHE  GUILTY?  175 

"  The  beasts  of  burden  linger  on  their  way 
Like  slaves,  who  will  not  speak  when  they  obey; 
Their  eyes,  whene'er  their  looks  to  us  they  raise, 
With  something  of  reproachful  patience  gaze. 

********** 

"  Labor  itself  is  but  a  sorrowful  song, 
The  protest  of  the  weak  against  the  strong; 
Over  rough  waters,  and  in  obstinate  fields, 
And  from  dark  mines,  the  same  sad  sound  it  yields." 

She  is  addressing  Brandolin  as  she  recites  them ; 
they  are  a  little  behind  the  others. 

He  does  not  reply,  but  looks  at  her  with  an  ex- 
pression in  his  eyes  which  astonishes  and  troubles  her. 
He  is  thinking,  as  the  music  of  her  tones  stirs  his  in- 
nermost soul,  that  he  can  believe  no  evil  of  her,  will 
believe  none, — no,  though  the  very  angels  of  heaven 
were  to  cry  out  against  her. 


176  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

MEMORIES    AND   SUSPICIONS. 

"  WHERE  were  you  all  this  morning  ? "  asks  Lady 
Usk  of  her  cousin,  after  luncheon. 

"I  never  get  up  early,"  returns  Gervase.  "You 
know  that." 

"  Brandolin  was  in  the  home  wood  with  Madame 
Sabaroff  as  we  returned  from  church,"  remarks  Dolly 
Usk.  "  They  were  together  under  a  larch-tree.  They 
looked  as  if  they  were  on  the  brink  of  a  quarrel  or 
at  the  end  of  one  :  either  may  be  an  interesting  rap- 
prochement" 

"I  dare  say  they  were  only  discussing  some  poet. 
They  are  always  discussing  some  poet." 

"  Then  they  had  fallen  out  over  the  poet.  Poets 
are  dangerous  themes.  Or  perhaps  she  had  been  show- 
ing him  your  letters,  if,  as  you  seem  to  think,  she 
carries  them  about  with  her  everywhere  like  a  reli- 
quary." 

"  I  never  presume  to  imagine  that  she  had  preserved 
them  for  a  day." 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  177 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  did.  You  had  a  vision  of  her  weep- 
ing over  them  in  secret  every  night,  until  you  saw  her 
here  and  found  her  as  unlike  a  delaisse  as  a  woman 
can  be." 

"  Certainly  she  does  not  look  that.  Possibly,  if 
Dido  could  have  been  dressed  by  Worth  and  Rod- 
rigues,  had  diamonds  as  big  as  plovers'  eggs,  and  been 
adored  by  Lord  Brandolin,  she  would  never  have 
perished  in  despair.  Autres  temps  autres  moeurs" 

He  speaks  with  sullen  and  scornful  bitterness  :  his 
handsome  face  is  momentarily  flushed. 

Dorothy  Usk  looks  at  him  with  inquisitiveness  :  she 
has  never  known  im  fail  to  rely  on  his  own  attrac- 
tions before.  "  You  are  unusually  modest,"  she  re- 
plies. "  Certainly,  in  our  days,  if  JEneas  does  not 
come  back,  we  take  somebody  else :  sometimes  we  do 
that  even  if  he  does  come  back." 

Gervase  is  moodily  silent. 

"  I  never  knew  you  c  funk  a  fence '  before  ! "  says  his 
cousin  to  him,  sarcastically. 

"  I  have  tried  to  say  something  to  her,"  replies 
Gervase,  moodily,  "  but  she  gives  me  no  hearing,  no 
occasion." 

"  I  should  have  thought  you  were  used  well  enough 
to  make  both  for  yourself,"  returns  his  cousin,  with 
curt  sympathy.  "  You  have  always  been  '  master  of 
yourself,  though  women  sigh,' — a  paraphrase  of  Pope 

at  your  service." 
12 


178  -^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

Gervase  smiled,  conscious  of  his  past  successes  and 
willing  to  acknowledge  them. 

"  But  you  see  she  does  not  sigh  !  "  he  murmurs,  with 
a  sense  that  the  admission  is  not  flattering  to  his  own 
amour-propre. 

"  You  have  lost  the  power  to  make  her  sigh,  do  you 
mean?" 

"  I  make  no  impression  on  her  at  all.  I  am  utterly 
unable  to  imagine  her  feelings,  her  sentiments, — how 
much  she  would  acknowledge,  how  much  she  would 
ignore." 

"  That  is  a  confession  of  great  helplessness !  I 
should  never  have  believed  that  you  would  be  baffled 
by  any  woman,  above  all  by  a  woman  who  once  loved 
you." 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  make  a  fire  out  of  ashes.'' 

"  Not  if  the  ashes  are  quite  cold,  certainly ;  but 
if  a  spark  remains  in  them,  the  fire  soon  comes 
again." 

He  is  silent :  the  apparent  indifference  of  a  person 
whom  he  believed  to  be  living  out  her  life  in  solitude, 
occupied  only  with  his  memory,  annoys  and  mortifies 
him.  He  has  never  doubted  his  own  power  to  write 
his  name  indelibly  on  the  hearts  of  women. 

"  Perhaps  she  wishes  to  marry  Brandolin  ?  "  suggests 
Dorothy  Usk. 

*'  Pshaw  ! "  says  Lord  Gervase. 

**  Why  pshaw  ? "   repeats   his   cousin,   persistently. 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  179 

"  He  would  not  be  a  man  to  my  taste,  and  he  hates 
marriage,  and  he  has  a  set  of  Hindoos  at  St.  Hubert's 
Lea,  which  would  require  as  much  cleaning  as  the 
Augean  stable ;  but  I  dare  say  she  doesn't  know  any- 
thing about  them,  and  he  may  be  persuading  her  that 
he  thinks  marriage  opens  the  doors  of  Paradise  :  men 
can  so  easily  pretend  that  sort  of  thing !  A  great 
many  men  have  wanted  to  marry  her,  I  believe,  since 
she  came  back  into  the  world  after  her  seclusion. 
George  declares  that  Brandolin  is  quite  serious." 

"  Preposterous !  "  replies  Lord  Gervase. 

"  Really,  I  don't  see  that,"  replies  his  judicious 
cousin.  "  A  great  many  women  have  wanted  to  marry 
him,  though  one  wonders  why.  Indeed,  I  have  heard 
some  of  them  declare  that  he  is  wholly  irresistible  when 
he  chooses." 

"  With  Hindoos,  perhaps,"  says  Gervase. 

"  With  our  own  women,"  says  his  cousin.  "  Lady 
Mary  Jardine  died  of  a  broken  heart  because  he 
wouldn't  look  at  her." 

"Pray  spare  me  the  roll-call  of  his  victims,"  says 
Lord  Gervase,  irritably :  he  is  passionately  jealous  of 
Brandolin.  He  himself  had  forgotten  Xenia  Sabaroff, 
and  forgotten  all  his  obligations  to  her,  when  sne  had 
been,  as  he  always  had  believed,  within  reach  of  his 
hand  if  he  stretched  it  out ;  but  viewed  as  a  woman 
whom  other  men  wooed  and  another  man  might  win, 
she  has  become  to  him  intensely  to  be  desired  and 


180  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

to  be  disputed.  He  has  been  a  spoiled  child  of  fort- 
une and  of  the  drawing-rooms  all  his  years,  and  the 
slightest  opposition  is  intolerable  to  him. 

"  I  have  no  doubt,"  continues  Dorothy  Usk,  gently, 
continuing  her  embroidery  of  a  South  Kensington 
design  of  lilies  and  palm-leaves,  "  that  if  he  were 
aware  you  had  a  prior  claim,  if  he  thought  or  knew 
that  you  had  ever  enjoyed  her  sympathy,  he  would 
immediately  withdraw  and  leave  the  field :  he  is  a 
very  proud  man,  with  all  his  carelessness,  and  would 
not,  I  think,  care  to  be  second  to  anybody  in  the  affec- 
tions of  a  woman  whom  he  seriously  sought." 

"What  do  you  mean?''  asks  Gervase,  abruptly, 
pausing  in  his  walk  to  and  fro  the  boudoir. 

"Only  what  I  say,"  she  answers.  "If  you  wish 
to  eloigner  Brandolin,  give  him  some  idea  of  the 
truth." 

Gervase  laughs  a  little. 

"  On  my  honor,"  he  thinks,  with  some  bitterness, 
u  for  sheer  uncompromising  meanness  there  is  nothing 
comparable  to  the  suggestions  which  a  woman  will 
make  to  you  ! " 

"  I  couldn't  do  that,"  he  says,  aloud.  "  What  would 
he  think  of  me?" 

"My  dear  Alan,"  replies  Dorothy  Usk,  impatiently, 
getting  her  silks  in  a  tangle,  "when  a  man  has  be- 
haved to  any  woman  as  you,  by  your  own  account, 
have  behaved  to  Madame  Sabaroff,  I  think  it  is  a 


MEMOEIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  181 

little  late  in  the  day  to  pretend  to  much  elevation  of 
feeling." 

"  You  do  not  understand " 

"  I  have  always  found,"  says  his  cousin,  impatiently 
searching  for  shades  of  silk  which  she  does  not  see, 
"  that  whenever  we  presume  to  pronounce  an  opinion 
on  any  man's  conduct  and  think  ill  of  it  we  are  always 
told  that  we  don't  understand  anything.  When  we 
flatter  the  man,  or  compliment  him  on  his  conduct, 
there  is  no  end  to  the  marvellous  powers  of  our  pene- 
tration, the  fineness  of  our  instincts,  the  accuracy  of 
our  intuitions." 

Gervase  does  not  hear :  his  thoughts  are  elsewhere  : 
he  is  thinking  of  Xenia  Sabaroff  as  he  saw  her  first  in 
the  Salle  des  Palmiers  in  the  Winter  Palace,  —  a 
mere  girl,  a  mere  child,  startled  and  made  nervous  by 
the  admiration  she  excited  and  the  homage  she  re- 
received,  under  the  brutality  of  her  husband,  the  rail- 
lery of  her  friends  ;  but  that  time  is  long  ago,  very 
long,  as  the  life  of  women  counts,  and  Xenia  Sabaroff 
is  now  perfect  mistress  of  her  own  emotions,  if  emo- 
tions she  ever  feels.  Gervase  cannot  for  one  moment 
tell  whether  the  past  is  tenderly  remembered  by  her, 
is  utterly  forgotten,  or  is  only  recalled  to  be  touched 
and  dismissed  without  regret.  He  is  a  vain  man,  but 
vanity  has  no  power  to  reassure  him  here. 

In  the  warm  afternoon  of  the  next  day  the  children 
are  in  the  school-room,  supposed  to  be  preparing  their 


182  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

lessons  for  the  morrow ;  but  the  German  governess, 
who  is  alone  as  guardian  of  order  in  the  temple  of 
intellect,  has  fallen  asleep,  with  flies  buzzing  about  her 
blonde  hair,  and  her  blue  spectacles  pushed  up  on  her 
forehead,  and  Dodo  has  taken  advantage  of  the  fact  to 
go  and  lean  out  of  one  of  the  windows,  whilst  her 
sister  draws  a  caricature  of  the  sleeping  virgin  from 
Deutschland,  and  the  Babe  slips  away  from  his  books  to 
a  mechanical  Punch,  which,  contraband  in  the  school- 
room, is  far  dearer  to  him  than  his  Gradus  and  rule  of 
three. 

Dodo,  with  her  hands  thrust  among  her  abundant 
locks,  lolls  with  half  her  body  in  the  air,  and,  by 
twisting  her  neck  almost  to  dislocation,  manages  to  see 
round  an  ivy-grown  buttress  of  the  east  wall,  and  to 
espy  people  who  are  getting  on  their  horses  at  the  south 
doors  of  the  building. 

"  They  are  going  out  riding  and  I  am  shut  up  here  !  " 
she  groans.  "  Oh,  what  a  while  it  takes  one  to  grow 
up!" 

"  Who  are  going  to  ride  ?  "  asks  Lilie,  too  fascinated 
by  her  drawing  to  leave  it. 

"Lots  of  them,"  replies  Dodo,  who  speaks  four 
languages,  and  her  own  worst  of  all.  "  All  of 
them,  pretty  nearly.  Mamma's  on  Pepper,  and  Lady 
"Waverley's  got  Bopeep,  —  she's  always  nervous,  you 
know.  I  can't  see  very  much,  'cause  of  the  ivy.  Oh, 
there's  the  princess  on  Satan, — nobody  else  could  ride 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  183 

Satan ;  Lord  Brandolin's  put  her  up,  and  now  he's 
riding  by  her.  They're  gone  now, — and  papa's  stop- 
ping behind  them  all  to  do  something  to  Bopeep's 
girths."  Whereat  the  dutiful  Dodo  laughs  rudely,  as 
she  laughed  coming  home  from  church. 

The  sound  of  the  horses'  hoofs  going  farther  away 
down  the  avenue  comes  through  the  stillness,  as  her 
voice  and  her  laughter  cease. 

"  What  a  shame  to  be  shut  up  here  just  because  one 
isn't  old  !  "  she  groans,  as  she  listens  enviously.  The 
sun  is  pouring  liquid  gold  through  the  ivy-leaves,  the 
air  is  hot  and  fragrant,  gardeners  are  watering  the 
flower-beds  below,  and  the  sweet,  moist  scent  comes  up 
to  Dodo's  nostrils  and  makes  her  writhe  with  longing 
to  get  out ;  not  that  she  is  by  any  means  ardently  de- 
voted to  nature,  but  she  loves  life,  movement,  gayety, 
and  she  dearly  loves  showing  off  her  figure  on  her 
pony  and  being  flirted  with  by  her  father's  friends. 

"  I  am  sure  Lord  Brandolin  is  in  love  with  her, 
awfully  in  love,"  she  says,  as  she  peers  into  the  distance, 
where  the  black  form  of  Satan  is  just  visible  through 
far-off  oak-boughs. 

"  With  whom  ? "  asks  Lilie,  getting  up  from  her 
caricature  to  lean  also  out  over  the  ivy. 

"Xenia,"  says  Dodo.  She  is  very  proud  of  calling 
her  friend  Xenia.  "Take  care  Goggles  don't  wake, 
or  she'll  see  what  you've  been  doing." 

The  lady  from  Deutschland  was  always  known  to 
them  by  this  endearing  epithet. 


184  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  I  don't  care,"  says  Lilie,  kicking  her  bronze  boots 
in  the  air.  "  Do  you  think  she'll  marry  Lord  Brando- 
lin?" 

"Who?  Goggles?" 

"  The  idea ! "    They  laugh  deliciously. 

"  You  say  he's  in  love  with  Xenia.  If  they're  in  love 
they  will  marry,"  says  Lilie,  pensively. 

"No,  they  won't:  people  who  are  in  love  never 
marry,"  replies  Dodo. 

"What  do  they  do,  then?"  inquires  the  younger 
sister. 

"  They  marry  somebody  else,  and  ask  the  one  they 
like  to  go  and  stay  with  them.  It  is  much  better,"  she 
adds.  "  It  is  what  I  shall  do." 

"  Why  is  it  better  ?  It's  a  round  about  way,"  objects 
Lilie.  "  I  shouldn't  care  to  marry  at  all,"  she  adds, 
"  only  one  can't  ever  be  Mistress  of  the  Robes  if  one 
doesn't." 

*  Oh,  everybody  marries,  of  course ;  only  some  muff 
it,  and  don't  get  all  they  want  by  it,"  replies  the  cynic 
Dodo. 

" Et  T  amour,  Mlladi  Alexandra?"  says  the  French 
governess,  entering  at  that  moment.  "  Ou  done  mettez- 
vous  I 'amour?" 

" Nous  ne  sommes  pas  des  bourgeoises"  returns 
Dodo,  very  haughtily. 

The  Babe,  sitting  astride  on  a  chair,  trying  to  mend 
his  mechanical  Punch,  who  screamed  and  beat  his  wife 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  185 

dbsolument  comme  la  nature,  as  the  French  governess 
said,  before  he  was  broken,  hears  the  discourse  of  his 
sisters  and  muses  on  it.  He  is  very  fond  of  Brandolin, 
and  he  adores  his  princess  :  he  would  like  them  to  live 
together,  and  he  would  go  and  see  them  without  his 
sisters,  who  tease  him,  and  without  Boom,  who  lords  it 
over  him.  Into  his  busy  and  precocious  little  brain 
there  enters  the  resolution  to  pousser  la  machine,  as 
his  governess  would  call  it. 

The  Babe  has  a  vast  idea  of  his  own  resources  in  the 
way  of  speech  and  invention,  and  he  has  his  mother's 
tendencies  to  interfere  with  other  people's  affairs,  and 
is  quite  of  an  opinion  that  if  he  had  the  management 
of  most  things  he  should  better  them.  He  has  broken 
his  Parisian  Punch  in  his  endeavor  to  make  it  say  more 
words  than  it  could  say,  but  this  slight  accident  does 
not  affect  his  own  admiration  and  belief  in  his  own 
powers,  any  more  than  to  have  brought  a  great  and 
prosperous  empire  within  measurable  distance  of  civil 
war  affects  a  statesman's  conviction  that  he  is  the  only 
person  who  can  rule  that  empire.  The  Babe,  like  Mr. 
Gladstone,  is  in  his  own  eyes  infallible.  Like  the 
astute  diplomatist  he  is,  he  waits  for  a  good  oppor- 
tunity ;  he  is  always  where  the  ladies  are,  and  his  sharp 
little  wits  have  been  preternaturally  quickened  in 
that  atmosphere  of  what  the  French  call  "Fodeur 
feminine." 

He  has  to  wait  some  days  for  his  occasion.    The 


186  -4  HOUSE-PARTY. 

frank  and  friendly  intercourse  which  existed  at  first 
between  Brandolin  and  Madame  Sabaroff  is  altered : 
they  are  never  alone,  and  the  pleasant  discussions  on 
poets  and  poetry,  on  philosophers  and  follies,  in  the 
gardens  in  the  forenoon  are  discontinued,  neither  could 
very  well  say  why,  but  the  presence  of  Gervase  chills 
and  oppresses  both  of  them  and  keeps  them  apart.  She 
has  the  burden  of  memory,  he  the  burden  of  suspicion  ; 
and  suspicion  is  a  thing  so  hateful  and  intolerable  to 
the  nature  of  Brandolin  that  it  makes  him  miserable  to 
feel  himself  guilty  of  it. 

But  one  morning  the  Babe  coaxes  her  out  to  go  with 
him  to  his  garden, — a  floral  republic,  where  a  cabbage 
comes  up  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  gloxinia,  and  plants 
are  plucked  up  by  the  roots  to  see  if  they  are  growing 
aright.  The  Babe's  system  of  horticulture  is  to  dig 
intently  for  ten  minutes  in  all  directions,  to  make  him- 
self very  red  in  the  face  and  then  to  call  Dick,  Tom, 
or  Harry,  any  under-gardener  who  may  be  near,  and 
say,  "  Here,  do  it  will  you  ?  "  Nevertheless,  he  retains 
the  belief  that  he  is  the  creator  and  cultivator  of  this 
his  garden,  as  M.  Grevy  believes  that  he  is  the  chief 
person  in  the  French  Republic  ;  and  he  takes  Madame 
Sabaroff  to  admire  it. 

"  It  would  look  better  if  it  were  a  little  more  in 
order,"  she  permits  herself  to  observe. 

"Oh,  that's  their  fault,"  said  the  Babe,  just  as 
M.  Gre"vy  would  say  of  disorder  in  the  Chambers, 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  187 

the  Babe  meaning  Dick,  Tom,  or  Harry,  as  the  Presi- 
dent would  mean  Clemenceau,  Rochefort,  or  M.  de 
Mun. 

"  My  dear  Babe,  how  exactly  you  are  like  the  Head 
of  a  Department !  "  says  Brandolin,  who  has  followed 
them  out  of  the  house  and  comes  up  behind  them. 
"  According  to  the  Head  of  a  Department,  it  is  never 
the  head  that  is  at  fault,  always  the  understrappers. 
May  I  inquire  since  when  it  has  become  the  fashion  to 
set  sunflowers  with  their  heads  downward  9  " 

"  I  wanted  to  see  if  the  roots  would  turn  after  the 
sun,"  says  the  Babe,  and  regards  his  explanation  as 
triumphant. 

"  And  they  only  die  !  How  perverse  of  them ! 
You  would  become  a  second  Newton,  if  your  destiny 
were  not  already  cast,  to  dazzle  the  world  by  a  blend- 
ing of  Beau  Brummel  and  Sir  Joseph  Paxton." 

The  Babe  looks  a  little  cross ;  he  does  not  like  to  be 
laughed  at  before  his  princess.  He  has  got  his  oppor- 
tunity, but  it  vexes  him  ;  he  has  an  impression  that 
his  companions  will  soon  drift  into  forgetting  both 
him  and  his  garden.  Since  the  approach  of  Brandolin 
the  latter  has  said  nothing. 

The  children's  gardens  are  in  a  rather  wild  and  dis- 
tant part  of  the  grounds  at  Surrenden.  It  is  noon ; 
most  people  staying  in  the  house  are  still  in  their  own 
rooms ;  it  is  solitary,  sunny,  still ;  a  thrush  is  singing 
in  a  jessamine  thicket,  there  is  no  other  sound  except 


188  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

that  of  a  gardener's  broom  sweeping  on  the  other  side 
of  the  laurel  hedge. 

The  Babe  feels  that  it  is  now  or  never  for  his  coup 
de  maitre. 

He  plucks  a  rose,  the  best  one  he  has,  and  offers  it 
to  Madame  Sabaroff,  who  accepts  it  gratefully,  though 
it  is  considerably  earwig-eaten,  and  puts  it  in  her 
corsage. 

The  eyes  of  Brandolin  follow  it  wistfully. 

The  Babe  glances  at  them  alternately  from  under 
his  hair,  then  his  small  features  assume  an  expression 
of  cherubic  innocence  and  unconsciousness.  The  most 
ruse  little  rogue  in  the  whole  kingdom,  he  knows  how 
to  make  himself  look  like  a  perfect  reproduction  of 
Sir  Joshua  Reynold's  Artlessness  or  Infancy.  He 
gazes  up  in  Xenia  Sabaroffs  face  with  angelic  sim- 
plicity admirably  assumed. 

"  When  you  marry  him,"  says  the  Babe,  pointing  to 
Brandolin,  with  admirably  affected  naivete,  "  you  will 
let  me  hold  up  your  train,  won't  you  ?  I  always  hold 
up  my  friends'  trains  when  they  marry.  I  have  a 
page's  dress,  Louis  something  or  other,  and  a  sword, 
and  a  velvet  cap  with  a  badge  and  a  feather :  I  always 
look  very  well.'* 

"  Oh,  what  an  odious  petit-maitre  you  will  be  when 
you  are  a  man,  my  dear  Babe  !  "  says  Xenia  Sabaroff. 

She  does  not  take  any  notice  of  his  opening  words, 
but  a  flush  of  color  comes  over  her  face  and  passes  as 
quickly  as  it  came, 


MEMORIES  AND  SUSPICIONS.  189 

" Petit  maitre, — what  is  that?"  says  the  Babe. 
"  But  you  will  let  me,  won't  you  ?  And  don't  marry 
him  till  the  autumn,  or  even  the  winter,  because  the 
velvet  makes  me  so  hot  when  the  day  is  hot,  and  the 
dress  wouldn't  look  nice  made  in  thin  things." 

"Could  I  only  add  my  prayers  to  his,"  murmurs 
Brandolin,  "  and  hope  that  in  the  autumn " 

Xenia  Sabaroff  looks  at  him  with  a  strange  gaze : 
it  is  penetrating,  dreamy,  wistful,  inquiring. 

"We  jest  as  the  child  jests,"  she  says,  abruptly,  and 
walks  onward. 

*•  I  do  not  jest,"  says  Brandolin. 

The  Babe  glances  at  them  under  his  thick  eyelashes, 
and,  being  a,  fine  mouche,  only  innocent  in  appearance, 
he  runs  off  after  a  butterfly.  He  has  not  been  brought 
up  in  a  feminine  atmosphere  of  poudre  de  riz  and  lait 
tfiris  without  learning  discretion. 


19()  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 


CHAPTER  XIH. 

EXPLANATOEY   INTERVIEW   IN    THE    LIBBABT. 

"  THE  Babe  is  a  better  courtier  than  gardener,"  says 
Xenia  Sabaroff,  as  she  shakes  a  green  aphis  out  of  her 
rose :  her  tone  is  careless,  but  her  voice  is  not  quite 
under  her  command,  and  has  a  little  tremor  in  it. 

Brandolin  looks  at  her  with  impassioned  eyes:  he 
has  grown  very  pale. 

"It  is  no  jest  with  me,"  he  says,  under  his  breath. 
"  I  would  give  you  my  life  if  you  would  take  it  ?  " 

The  last  words  have  the  accent  of  an  interrogation, 
of  an  appeal. 

"  That  is  to  say  a  great  deal,"  replies  Xenia  Saba- 
roff :  she  is  startled,  astonished,  troubled  ;  she  was  not 
expecting  any  such  entire  avowal. 

"  Many  men  must  have  said  as  much  to  you  who 
have  more  to  recommend  them  than  I.  Say  some- 
thing to  me  :  what  will  you  say  ?  " 

She  does  not  immediately  reply  j  she  looks  on  the 
ground,  and  absently  traces  patterns  on  the  path  with 
the  end  of  her  long  walking-stick. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  says,  at  last,  after  a  silence 
which  seems  to  him  endless,  "  do  you  know  that  there 


EXPLANATORY  INTERVIEW.  191 

are  people  who  believe  that  I  have  been  the  delaissee 
of  Lord  Gervase  ?  They  do  not  phrase  it  so  roughly, 
but  that  is  what  they  say." 

Brandolin's  very  lips  are  white,  but  his  voice  does 
not  falter  for  one  moment  as  he  answers,  "  They  will 
not  say  it  in  my  hearing." 

"  And,  knowing  that  they  say  it,  you  would  still 
offer  me  your  name  ?  " 

"  I  do  so." 

"And  you  would  ask  me  nothing  save  what  I 
choose  to  tell  you  ?  " 

The  sunny  air  seems  to  turn  round  with  him  for  an 
instant :  his  brain  grows  dizzy ;  his  heart  contracts 
with  a  sickening  pain  ;  but  in  the  next  moment  a  great 
wave  of  strong  and  perfect  faith  in  the  woman  he 
cares  for  lifts  his  soul  up  on  it,  as  a  sea-wave  lifts  a 
drowning  man  to  land. 

"  You  shall  tell  me  nothing  save  what  you  choose,'' 
he  says,  clearly  and  very  tenderly.  "  I  have  perfect 
faith  in  you.  Had  I  less  than  that,  I  would  not  ask 
you  to  be  my  wife." 

She  looks  at  him  with  astonishment  and  with 
wondering  admiration. 

"  Yet  you  know  so  little  of  me !  "  she  murmurs,  in 
amaze. 

"  I  love  you,"  says  Brandolin ;  then  he  kisses  her 
hand  with  great  reverence. 

The  tears  which  she  had  thought  driven  from  her 
eyes  forever,  rise  in  them  now. 

13 


192  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  You  are  very  noble,"  she  replies,  and  leaves  her 
hand  for  an  instant  within  his. 

The  Babe,  who  has  been  watching  from  behind  a 
tuft  of  laurel,  can  control  his  impatience  no  longer, 
but  comes  out  of  his  ambush  and  runs  towards  them, 
regardless  of  how  undesired  he  may  be. 

"  Dodo  says  that  women  never  marry  anybody  they 
love,"  he  says,  breathlessly  ;  "  but  that  is  not  true,  is 
it,  and  you  will  let  me  carry  your  train  ?  " 

"  Hush,  my  dear,"  says  Xenia  Sabaroff,  laying  her 
hand  on  the  child's  shoulder,  while  there  is  a  sound  in 
her  voice  which  subdues  to  silence  even  the  audacious 
spirit  of  the  Babe. 

"  Give  me  time  to  think,"  she  says,  in  a  low  tone 
to  Brandolin ;  and  then,  with  her  hand  still  on  the 
little  boy's  shoulder,  she  turns  away  from  him  and 
walks  slowly  towards  the  house. 

The  child  walks  silently  and  shyly  beside  her,  his 
happy  vanity  troubled  for  once  by  the  sense  that  he  has 
made  some  mistake,  and  that  there  are  some  few  things 
still  in  the  universe  which  he  does  not  quite  entirely 
understand. 

"  You  are  not  angry  ?  "  he  asks  her,  at  last,  with  a 
vague  terror  in  his  gay  and  impudent  little  soul. 

"  Angry  with  you  ?  "  says  Xenia  Sabaroff.  «*  My 
dear  child,  no.  I  am  perhaps  angry  with  myself, — 
myself  of  many  years  ago." 

The  Babe  is  silent :  he  does  not  venture  to  ask  any 


EXPLANA  TOR  Y  INTER  VIEW.  193 

more,  and  he  has  a  humiliating  feeling  that  he  is  not 
first  in  the  thoughts  of  Madame  Sabaroff, — nay,  that, 
though  his  rose  is  in  her  gown  and  her  hand  upon  his 
shoulder,  she  has  almost,  very  nearly  almost,  forgotten 
him. 

Brandolin  does  not  attempt  to  follow  her.  Her 
great  charm  for  him  consists  in  the  power  she  possesses 
of  compelling  him  to  control  his  impulses.  He  walks 
away  by  himself  through  the  green  shadows  of  the 
boughs,  wishing  for  no  companionship  save  hers.  He 
is  fully  aware  that  he  has  done  a  rash,  perhaps  an 
utterly  unwise,  thing  in  putting  his  future  into  the 
hands  of  a  woman  of  whom  he  knows  so  little,  and 
has,  perhaps,  the  right  to  suspect  so  much.  Yet  he 
does  not  repent. 

He  does  not  see  her  again  before  dinner.  She  doea 
not  come  into  the  library  at  the  tea-hour ;  there  is  a 
large  dinner  that  night ;  county  people  are  there,  as 
well  as  the  house-party.  He  has  to  take  in  a  stupid 
woman,  wife  of  the  Lord- Lieutenant,  who  thinks  him 
the  most  absent-minded  and  unpleasant  person  she  has 
ever  known,  and  wonders  how  he  has  got  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  wit.  He  is  so  seated  that  he  cannot  even  see 
Xenia  Sabaroff,  and  he  chafes  and  frets  throughout  the 
dinner,  from  the  bisque  soup  to  the  caviare  biscuit,  and 
thinks  what  an  idiotic  thing  the  habits  of  society  have 
made  of  human  life. 

When  he  is  fairly  at  rare  intervals  goaded  into  speech, 
18 


194  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

he  utters  paradoxes,  and  suggests  views  so  startling 
that  the  wife  of  the  Lord-Lieutenant  is  scandalized, 
and  thinks  the  lunacy  laws  are  defective  if  they  can- 
not include  and  incarcerate  him.  She  feels  sure  that 
the  rumor  about  the  Hindoo  women  at  St.  Hubert's 
Lea  is  entirely  true. 

After  dinner  he  is  free  to  approach  the  lady  of  his 
thoughts,  but  he  endeavors  in  vain  to  tell  from  her 
face  what  answer  he  will  receive,  what  time  and  medi- 
tation may  have  done  or  undone  for  him.  She  avoids 
the  interrogation  of  his  eyes,  and  is  surrounded  by 
other  men  as  usual. 

The  evening  seems  to  him  intolerably  long  and  in- 
tolerably tedious.  It  is,  however,  for  others  very  gay. 
There  is  an  improvised  dance,  ending  in  an  impromptu 
cotillion,  and  following  on  an  act  of  a  comic  opera  given 
with  admirable  spirit  by  Lady  Dawlish,  Mrs.  Curzon, 
and  some  of  the  younger  men.  Every  one  is  amused* 
but  the  hours  seem  very  slow  to  him :  Gervase  scarcely 
leaves  her  side  at  all,  and  Brandolin,  with  all  his  chiv- 
alrous refusal  and  unchanging  resolution  to  allow  no 
shadow  of  doubt  to  steal  over  him,  feels  the  odious 
whispers  he  has  heard  and  the  outspoken  words  of 
Litroff  recur  to  his  memory  and  weigh  on  him  like  the 
incubus  of  a  nightmare.  With  a  sensation  of  dread, 
he  realizes  that  it  is  possible,  do  what  he  may,  that 
they  may  haunt  him  so  all  his  life.  A  man  may  be 
always  master  of  his  acts  hut  scarcely  always  of  his 
thoughts. 


EXPLANATORY  INTERVIEW.  195 

"But  I  will  never  ask  her  one  syllable,"  he  thinks, 
"  and  I  will  marry  her  to-morrow  if  she  chooses." 

But  will  she  choose  ? 

He  is  far  from  sure.  He  pleases  her  intelligence : 
he  possesses  her  friendship ;  but  whether  he  has  the 
slightest  power  to  touch  her  heart  he  does  not  know. 
If  he  loved  her  less  than  he  does  he  would  be  more 
confident. 

As  the  interminable  hours  wear  away,  and  the  noise 
and  absurdities  of  the  cotillion  are  at  their  height,  she, 
who  never  dances  anywhere,  drops  her  fan,  and  he  is 
before  the  others  in  restoring  it  to  her.  As  she  takes 
it,  she  says,  in  a  low  voice,  "  Be  in  the  small  library  at 
eleven  to-morrow." 

Soon  after  she  leaves  the  ball-room  altogether,  and 
goes  to  her  bed-chamber. 

Brandolin  goes  to  his  before  the  cotillion  is  over, 
but  he  sleeps  very  little.  He  longs  for  the  morrow, 
and  yet  he  dreads  it.  "  Quand  m$me"  he  murmurs, 
as  from  his  bed  he  sees  the  white  dawn  over  the  dark 
masses  of  the  Surrenden  woods.  Tell  him  what  she 
may,  he  thinks,  he  will  give  her  his  life  if  she  will 
take  it.  He  is  madly  in  love,  no  doubt ;  but  there  is 
something  nobler  and  purer  than  the  madness  of  love, 
than  the  mere  violent  instincts  of  passion,  in  his 
loyalty  to  her.  Before  anything  he  cherishes  the 
honor  of  his  name  and  race,  and  he  is  willing,  blind- 
fold, to  trust  her  with  it. 


196  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

That  morning  it  seems  to  him  as  if  the  hours  would 
never  pass,  though  they  are  few  until  the  clocks  strike 
eleven.  The  house  is  still,  almost  every  one  is  asleep, 
for  the  cotillion,  successful  as  only  unpremeditated 
things  ever  are,  had  lasted  till  the  sun  was  high  and 
the  dew  on  the  grass  of  the  garden  was  dry. 

With  a  thickly-beating  heart,  nervous  and  eager  as 
though  he  were  a  boy  of  sixteen  seeking  his  first  love- 
tryst,  he  enters  the  small  library  far  before  the  hour, 
and  waits  for  her  there,  pacing  to  and  fro  the  floor. 
The  room  is  full  of  memories  of  her :  here  they  have 
talked  on  rainy  days  and  have  strolled  out  on  to  the 
lawns  on  fine  ones ;  there  is  the  chair  which  she  likes 
best,  and  there  the  volume  she  had  taken  down  yester- 
day ;  could  it  be  only  ten  days  since  standing  here  he 
had  seen  her  first  in  the  distance  with  the  children  ? 
Only  ten  days !  It  seems  to  him  ten  years,  ten  centuries. 

The  morning  is  very  still,  a  fine  soft  rain  is  falling, 
wet  jessamine-flowers  tap  against  the  panes  of  the 
closed  windows,  a  great  apprehension  seems  to  make 
his  very  heart  stand  still. 

As  the  clock  points  to  the  hour  she  enters  the  room. 

She  is  very  pale,  and  wears  a  morning  gown  of 
white  plush,  which  trails  behind  her  in  a  silver 
shadow.  He  kisses  her  hands  passionately,  but  she 
draws  them  away. 

"  Wait  a  little,"  she  says,  gently.  "  Wait  till  you 
know — whatever  there  is  to  know." 


EXPLANA  TOR  Y  INI  ER  VIEW.  1 97 

"  I  want  to  know  but  one  thing." 

She  smiles  a  little  sadly. 

"Oh,  you  think  so  now  because  you  are  in  love 
with  me.  But  in  time  to  come,  when  that  is  passed, 
you  will  not  be  so  easily  content.  If" — she  hesitates 
a  moment — "  if  there  is  to  be  any  community  between 
our  lives,  you  must  be  quite  satisfied  as  to  my  past. 
It  is  your  right  to  be  so  satisfied ;  and  were  you  not 
so,  some  time  or  other  we  should  both  be  wi-etched." 

His  eyes  flash  with  joy. 

"  Then "  he  begins  breathlessly. 

"  Oh !  how  like  a  man  that  is !  "  she  says,  sadly. 
"To  think  but  of  the  one  thing,  of  the  one  present 
moment,  and  to  be  ready  to  give  all  the  future  in 
pawn  for  it !  Wait  to  hear  everything.  And  first  of 
all  I  must  tell  you  that  Lord  Gervase  also  last  night 
asked  me  to  marry  him." 

«  And  you !  " 

"  I  shall  not  marry  Lord  Gervase.  But  I  will  not 
disguise  from  you  that  once  I  would  have  done  so 
gladly,  had  I  been  free  to  do  it." 

Brandolin  is  silent :  he  changes  color. 

"I  bade  him  come  here  for  my  answer,"  she  con- 
tinues. "  He  will  be  here  in  a  few  minutes.  I  wish 
you  to  remain  in  the  large  library,  so  that  you  may 
hear  all  that  I  say  to  him." 

"  I  cannot  do  that ;  I  cannot  play  the  part  of 
eavesdropper." 


198  -A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  You  will  play  that  part,  or  any  other  that  I  ask 
you,  if  you  love  me,"  she  says,  with  a  touch  of 
imperiousness. 

"  Do  you  not  see,"  she  goes  on,  with  more  gentle- 
ness, "  that  if  our  lives  are  to  be  passed  near  each 
other  (I  do  not  say  that  they  are,  but  you  seem  to 
wish  it),  you  must  first  of  all  be  convinced  of  the 
truth  of  all  I  tell  you  !  If  one  doubt,  one  suspicion, 
remain,  you  will,  in  time,  become  unable  to  banish 
it.  It  would  grow  and  grow  until  you  were  mastered 
by  it.  You  believe  in  what  I  tell  you  now  ;  but  how 
long  would  you  believe  after  marriage  ?  " 

"  I  want  no  proof  :  I  only  want  your  word.  Nay, 
I  do  not  even  want  that.  I  will  ask  you  nothing. 
I  swear  that  I  will  never  ask  you  anything." 

"  That  is  very  beautiful ;  and  I  am  sure  that  you 
mean  it  now.  But  it  could  not  last.  You  are  a  very 
proud  man ;  you  are  gentilhomme  de  race.  It  would 
in  time  become  intolerable  to  you  if  you  believed  that 
any  one  living  man  had  any  title  to  point  a  finger 
of  scorn  at  you.  You  have  a  right  to  know  what 
my  relations  were  with  Lord  Gervase  :  it  is  necessary 
for  all  the  peace  of  our  future  that  you  should  know 
everything, — know  that  there  is  nothing  more  left  for 
you  to  know.  You  can  only  be  convinced  of  that  if 
you  yourself  hear  what  I  say  to  him.  Go ;  and  wait 
there." 

Brandolin   hesitates.      To   listen   unseen   is   a  part 


EXPLANATORY  INTERVIEW.  199 

which  seems  very  cowardly  to  him,  and  yet  she  is 
right,  no  doubt ;  all  the  peace  of  the  future  may 
depend  on  it.  He  is  ready  to  pledge  himself  blindly 
in  the  dark  in  all  ways,  but  he  knows  that  she,  in  for- 
bidding him  to  do  so,  speaks  the  word  of  wisdom,  of 
foresight,  and  of  truth. 

"Go,"  she  repeats.  "Men  have  a  thousand  ways 
of  proving  the  truth  of  whatever  they  say ;  we  have 
none,  or  next  to  none.  If  you  refuse  me  this,  the  sole 
poor  evidence  that  I  can  produce,  I  will  never  be  to 
you  anything  that  you  now  wish.  Never ;  that  I 
swear  to  you." 

He  hesitates,  and  looks  at  her  with  a  long  inquiring 
regard.  Then  he  bows  and  goes. 

After  all,  she  is  within  her  rights.  She  has  no 
other  means  to  show  him  with  any  proof  what  this  man 
whose  name  is  so  odiously  entangled  with  her  own  has, 
or  has  not,  been  to  her. 

The  house  is  still  quite  silent,  and  no  one  is  likely 
to  come  into  those  rooms  until  much  later.  Every 
syllable  said  in  the  small  library  can  be  heard  in  any 
part  of  the  larger  one.  He  stands  in  the  embrasure 
of  one  of  the  windows,  the  velvet  curtains  making 
a  screen  behind  him.  He  seems  to  wait  for  hours  ; 
in  reality  only  five  minutes  have  passed  when  he 
hears  the  door  of  the  great  library  open,  and  Gervase 
passes  quickly  through  the  apartment  without  seeing 
him,  and  goes  on  into  the  one  where  she  awaits  his 
coming. 


200  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"Are  you  realiy  risen  so  early?"  she  says  with  a 
sarcastic  coldness  in  her  voice.  "  I  remembered  after- 
wards that  it  was  too  cruel  to  name  to  you  any  hour 
before  noon." 

"  You  are  unkind,"  he  answers.  "  To  hear  what  I 
hope  to  hear,  you  may  be  sure  that  I  would  have  gone 
through  much  greater  trials  than  even  rising  with  the 
lark,  had  you  commanded  it." 

His  words  are  light,  but  his  accent  is  tender  and 
appealing. 

"What  do  you  hope  to  hear?"  she  asks,  abruptly. 
The  question  embarrasses  him  and  sounds  cold. 

"  I  hope  to  hear  that  you  pardon  me  the  past  and 
will  deign  to  crown  my  future." 

"  I  pardon  you  the  past,  certainly.  With  neither 
your  present  nor  your  future  have  I  anything  to  do.'' 

"  You  say  that  very  cruelly, — so  cruelly  that  it 
makes  your  forgiveness  more  unkind  than  your  hatred 
would  be." 

"  I  intend  no  unkindness.  I  merely  wish  to  express 
indifference.  Perhaps  I  am  even  mistaken  in  saying 
that  I  entirely  forgive  you.  When  I  remember  that 
you  once  possessed  any  influence  over  me,  I  scarcely  do 
forgive  you,  for  I  am  forced  to  despise  myself." 

"  Those  are  very  hard  words !  Perhaps  in  the 
past  I  was  unworthy  of  having  known  and  loved  you  ; 
but  if  you  will  believe  in  my  regret,  and  allow  me 
occasion  to  atone,  you  shall  never  repent  of  your  in- 
dulgence. Pray  hear  me  out,  Xenia " 


EXPLANATORY  INTEEVIEW.  201 

"  You  cannot  call  me  by  that  name.  It  is  for  my 
friends  :  you  are  not  numbered  among  them." 

"  I  would  be  much  more  than  your  friend.  If  you 
will  be  my  wife." 

"  It  is  too  late,"  she  replies,  and  her  voice  is  as  cold 
as  ice. 

"  Why  too  late  ?  We  have  all  the  best  of  our  lives 
unspent  before  us." 

"  When  I  say  too  late,  I  mean  that  if  you  had  said 
as  much  to  me  after  the  death  of  Prince  Sabaroff  I 
should  have  accepted  your  hand,  and  I  should  have 
spent  the  whole  remainder  of  my  existence  in  repent- 
ing that  I  had  done  so ;  for  I  should  soon  have  fath- 
omed the  shallowness  of  your  character,  the  artificiality 
and  poverty  of  your  sentiments,  the  falseness  of  your 
mind,  and  I  should  speedily  have  hated  both  myself 
and  you." 

"  You  are  not  merciful,  madame  ! " 

He  is  bitterly  humbled  and  passionately  incensed. 

"  Were  you  merciful  ?  "  she  asks  him,  with  the 
sound  of  a  great  anger,  carefully  controlled,  vibrating 
in  her  voice.  "  I  was  a  child,  taken  out  of  a  country 
convent,  and  married  as  ignorantly  as  a  bird  is  trapped. 
I  had  rank,  and  I  was  burdened  by  it.  I  was  in  a 
great  world,  a  great  court,  and  I  was  terrified  by  them. 
The  man  I  had  been  given  to  was  a  gambler,  a  drunk- 
ard, and  a  brute.  He  treated  me  in  private  as  he  had 
treated  the  women  captured  in  Turkestan  or  sold  as 


202  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

slaves  in  Persia.  You  knew  that :  you  were  his  in- 
timate associate.  You  used  your  opportunities  to 
interest  me  and  win  your  way  into  my  confidence.  I 
had  no  one  in  the  whole  world  that  I  could  trust. 
I  did  trust  you." 

She  pauses  a  moment. 

Gervase  does  not  dare  reply. 

"  You  were  so  gentle,  so  considerate,  so  full  of  sym- 
pathy ;  I  thought  you  a  very  angel.  A  girl  of  sixteen 
or  seventeen  sees  the  face  of  St.  John  in  the  first  Faust 
who  finds  his  way  into  her  shut  soul !  You  made  me 
care  for  you ;  I  do  not  deny  it.  But  why  did  I  care  ? 
Because  I  saw  in  you  the  image  of  a  thousand  things 
you  were  not.  Because  I  imagined  that  my  own  fanci- 
ful ideal  existed  in  you,  and  you  had  the  ability  to 
foster  the  illusion." 

"  But  why  recall  all  this !  "  he  says,  entreatingly. 
"  Perhaps  I  was  unworthy  of  your  innocent  attach- 
ment, of  your  exalted  imaginations ;  I  dare  not  say 
that  I  was  not ;  but  now  that  I  meet  you  again,  now 
that  I  care  for  you  ten  thousand — ten  million  times 
more " 

"  What  is  that  to  me  ?  "  she  says,  with  almost  inso- 
lent coldness.  "  It  was  not  I  who  loved  you,  but  a 
child  who  knew  no  better,  and  whose  heart  was  so 
bleeding  from  the  tortures  of  another  man  that  the 
first  hand  which  soothed  it  could  take  it  as  one  takes 
a  wounded  bird  !  But  when  my  eyes  opened  to  your 


EXPLANA  TOR  Y  IN  TEE  VIEW.  203 

drift  and  your  desires,  when  I  saw  that  you  were  no 
better  than  other  men,  that  you  tried  to  tempt  me  to 
the  lowest  forms  of  intrigue  under  cover  of  your 
friendship  with  my  husband,  then,  child  though  I 
was,  I  saw  you  as  you  were,  and  I  hid  myself  from 
you !  You  thought  that  Sabaroff  exiled  me  from  his 
jealousy  of  you  to  the  northern  estates ;  but  it  was 
not  so.  I  entreated  him  to  let  me  leave  Petersburg, 
and  he  had  grown  tired  of  torturing  me  and  let  me 
go." 

"  You  blame  me  for  being  merely  human.  I  loved 
you  not  better  but  not  worse  than  men  do  love. 

"  I  blame  you  for  having  been  insincere,  treacherous, 
dishonest.  You  approached  me  under  cover  of  the 
most  delicate  and  forbearing  sympathy  and  reverence, 
and  you  only  wore  those  masks  to  cover  the  vulgar  de- 
signs of  a  most  commonplace  Lothario.  Of  course, 
now  I  know  that  one  must  not  play  with  fire  unless 
one  is  willing  to  be  burned.  I  did  not  know  it  then. 
I  was  a  stupid,  unhappy,  trembling  child,  full  of  poetic 
fancies,  and  alone  in  a  dissolute  crowd.  When  you 
could  not  make  me  what  you  wished  to  make  me,  I 
seemed  very  tame  and  useless  to  you.  You  turned  to 
more  facile  women,  no  doubt,  and  you  left  Russia." 

"  I  left  Russia  under  orders ;  and  I  wrote  to  you. 
I  wrote  to  you  repeatedly.  You  never  answered." 

"  No ;  I  had  no  wish  to  answer  you.  I  had  seen 
you  as  you  were,  and  the  veil  had  fallen  from  my 


204  ^  HOUSE-PARTY. 

eyes.  I  burnt  your  letters  as  they  came  to  me.  But 
after  the  death  of  Prince  Sabaroff  you  were  careful 
to  write  no  more." 

Gervase  colors  hotly ;  there  is  an  accent  in  the 
words  which  makes  them  strike  him  like  whips. 

"If  you  had  written  to  me  after  that,"  she  con- 
tinues, "  perhaps  I  should  have  answered  you :  perhaps 
not  ?  I  cannot  tell.  When  you  knew  that  I  was  set 
free  you  were  silent;  you  stayed  away,  I  know  not 
where.  I  never  saw  you  again ;  I  never  heard  from 
you  again.  Now  I  thank  you  for  your  neglect  and 
oblivion,  but  at  the  time  I  confess  that  it  made  me 
suffer.  I  was  very  young  still,  and  romantic.  For  a 
while  I  expected  every  month  which  melted  the  snow 
would  bring  you  back.  So  much  I  admit,  though  it 
will  flatter  you." 

It  does  not  flatter  him  as  she  says  it ;  rather  it 
wounds  him.  He  has  a  hateful  sense  of  his  own 
impotency  to  stir  her  one  hand's  breadth,  to  breathe 
one  spark  of  warmth  into  those  ashes  gone  cold  for- 
ever. 

"  I  do  not  think,"  she  continues,  "  that  I  ever  loved 
yon  in  the  sense  that  women  can  love ;  but  you  had 
the  power  to  make  me  suffer,  to  feel  your  oblivion, 
to  remember  you  when  you  had  forgotten  me.  When  I 
went  into  the  world  again  I  heard  of  your  successes 
with  others,  and  gradually  I  came  to  see  you  in  your 
true  light,  and,  almost,  the  drunken  brutality  of  Prince 


EXPLANATORY  INTERVIEW.  205 

Sabaroff  seemed  to  me  a  manlier  thing  than  your  half- 
hearted and  shallow  erotics  had  been.  Now,  when  we 
meet  again  by  pure  hazard  in  the  same  country  house, 
you  do  me  the  honor  to  offer  me  your  hand  after  eight 
years.  I  can  only  say,  as  I  have  said  before,  that  it  is 
seven  years  too  late !  " 

"Too  late,  only  because  Lord  Brandolin  now  is 
everything  to  you." 

"  Lord  Brandolin  may  possibly  be  something  to  me 
in  the  future.  But,  if  Lord  Brandolin  did  not  exist,  if 
no  other  living  man  existed,  be  sure  that  it  would  make 
no  difference  to  me — or  to  you." 

"  Is  that  your  last  word  ?  " 

«  Yes." 

Pale  and  agitated  as  no  other  woman  had  ever  seen 
him,  Gervase  bows  low  and  leaves  her  abruptly,  push- 
ing open  one  of  the  glass  doors  on  to  the  garden  and 
closing  it  with  a  clash  behind  him. 

Xenia  Sabaroff  goes  towards  the  large  library,  her 
silvery  train  catching  the  lights  and  shadows  as  she 
goes. 

Brandolin  meets  her  with  his  hands  outstretched. 

"  You  are  content,  then  ?  "  she  asks. 

"  I  am  more  than  content, — if  I  may  be  allowed  to 
atone  to  you  for  all  that  you  have  suffered." 

His  own  eyes  are  dim  as  he  speaks. 

"But  you  know  that  the  world  will  always  say  that 
he  was  my  lover?" 


206  A  HOUSE-PARTY. 

"  I  do  not  think  that  the  world  will  say  it — of  my 
wife;  but,  if  they  do,  I,  at  least,  shall  not  be  troubled." 

"You  have  a  great  nature,"  she  says,  with  deep 
emotion. 

Brandolin  smiles.     "  Oh,  I  cannot  claim  so  much  as 

that ;  but  I  have  a  great  love." 

#***#**#* 

"  I'm  awfully  glad  that  prig's  got  spun,"  says  George 
Usk,  as  Gervase  receives  a  telegram  from  the  Foreign 
Office  which  requires  his  departure  from  Surrenden  at 
four  o'clock  that  afternoon. 

"  Spun  !  What  imagination ! "  says  his  wife,  very 
angrily.  "  Who  should  have  spun  him,  pray  will  you 
tell  me?" 

"  We  shall  never  hear  it  in  so  many  words,"  says 
Usk,  with  a  grim  complacency,  "  but  I'll  swear,  if  I 
die  for  it,  that  he's  asked  your  Russian  friend  to 
marry  him  and  that  she's  said  she  won't.  Very  wise 
of  her,  too.  Especially  if,  as  you  imply,  they  carried 
on  together  years  ago:  he'd  be  eternally  throwing  it 
in  her  teeth :  he's  what  the  Yanks  call  a  « tarnation 
mean  cuss.' " 

"  I  never  implied  anything  of  the  sort,"  answers 
the  lady  of  Surrenden,  with  great  decorum  and  dig- 
nity. "I  never  suppose  that  all  my  friends  are  all 
they  ought  to  be,  whatever  yours  may  leave  to  be 
desired.  If  he  were  attached  long  ago  to  Madame 
Sabaroff,  it  is  neither  your  affair  nor  mine.  It  may 


EXPLANATORY  INTERVIEW.  20 1 

possibly  concern  Lord  Brandolin,  if  he  have  the 
intentions  which  you  attribute  to  him." 

"  Brandolin  can  take  care  of  himself,"  says  Usk, 
carelessly.  "He  knows  the  time  of  day  as  well  as 
anybody,  and  I  don't  know  why  you  should  be  rough 
on  it,  my  lady  :  it  will  be  positively  refreshing  if  any- 
body  marries  after  one  of  your  house-parties;  they 
generally  only  get  divorced  after  them." 

"  The  Waverleys  are  very  good  friends  still,  I 
believe,"  says  Dorothy  Usk,  coldly. 

The  reply  seems  irrelevant,  but  to  the  ear  of  George 
Usk  it  carries  considerable  relevancy. 

He  laughs  a  little  nervously.  "  Oh,  yes :  so  are  we, 
aren't  we  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  says  the  mistress  of  Surrenden. 
****          *          *          *         *         * 

At  the  first  Drawing-room  this  year,  the  admired  of 
all  eyes,  and  the  centre  of  all  comment,  is  the  Lady 
Brandolin. 


14 


,.1E!.?.U™.™  REGI°NAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  741  549     o 


